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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6002.txt b/6002.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2892557 --- /dev/null +++ b/6002.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8118 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Miss By-The-Day, by Lucille Van Slyke + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Little Miss By-The-Day + +Author: Lucille Van Slyke + +Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6002] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 13, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE MISS BY-THE-DAY *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +LITTLE MISS BY-THE-DAY + +BY +LUCILLE VAN SLYKE + +_Author of "Eve's Other Children"_ + +_With A Frontispiece In Color By MABEL HATT_ + +1919 + + + + +TO GEORDIE + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + PROLOGUE +I IN THE BARRED GARDEN +II THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS +III LOST DREAMS +IV THE UNFINISHED SONG +V "CERTAIN LEGAL MATTERS" +VI THE LAST PRETENDING + + + + +PROLOGUE + + +The older I get the more convinced I become that the most fascinating +persons in this world are those elusive souls whom we know perfectly +well but whom we never, as children say, "get to meet." They slip out +of countries, or towns--_or rooms even,_--just before we arrive, +leaving us with an inexplicable feeling of having been cheated of +something that was rightfully and divinely ours. That's the way I +still feel about little Miss By-the-Day. Perhaps you, too, have been +baffled by the will-o'-the-wispishness of that whimsical young person. +Perhaps you, too, tried to find her but never did. + +She sounded so casual and commonplace when I first began hearing about +her that I let her slip through my fingers. She was just a little +seamstress who had a "vairee" odd way of speaking; it was quite a long +time before I realized that everybody who spoke about her was +unconsciously trying to imitate her drawling voice. And then I noticed +that everybody who mentioned her smiled dreamily and wondered where on +earth she'd come from. I kept hearing, just as you probably did, odd +scraps of things she had said, droll adventures in which she had +figured, extraordinary and fantastic tales about the house in which +she lived. And presently, when it was too late, I found myself +listening to regretful murmurings of scores of baffled persons who +couldn't find out what had become of her. She suddenly vanished, +leaving nothing behind her save her delectable house. + +If you'll lend me your pencil a minute I'll show you on the back of +this envelope just how that house was situated. You can understand the +whole amazing story better if you keep in mind how the church on the +corner and the rectory were tucked in beside that great house. For it +_is_ a big house, so huge that the six prim brownstones across the +street from it look like toy houses. But I've been told that in +Brooklyn's early days there was no street, just a long terraced garden +that sloped down to the river. + +For all that the streets have crowded so disrespectfully about it the +whole place still has a sort of "world-with-out-end-amen" air--perhaps +because of the impressive squareness of its structure, great blocks of +brownstone joined solidly; perhaps because of the enormous gnarled +wistaria vines that stretch above its massive cornices--but one does +feel as Felicia Day herself did when some one asked her how long she +thought it had been there. She said she thought it must have been +there "Much, much more than Always--it must have been _jamais au grand_ +--forevaire and more than evaire!" + +Maybe, like me, you've passed that house a dozen times and shuddered +at the filth of the little street. + +[Illustration: Town map.] + +I used to hold my breath as I hurried by that dismal old rookery. I +thought it the most hideous purgatory that ever sheltered a horde of +miserable humans. But you needn't be afraid to pass it now! The +immaculate sweetness and serenity of that wee street is like a miracle +and the old house is a fairy dream come true. + +Its marble steps are softly yellowed with age, an exquisitely wrought +iron balcony stretches across the front above the high ceilinged +basement and great carved walnut doors open into a wide vestibule with +a marble floor exactly like a bit of a gigantic chessboard. The +transformation had so astounded me that I was almost afraid to touch +the neatly polished beaten silver bell for fear the whole house would +vanish. + +"Coom in!" cried a Scotchy voice from the basement. So I stepped +across the tessellated floor of the hall into the broad drawing-room +and stared out through the long French doors of the glass room at the +green smudge of Battery Park beyond the river. There wasn't a soul in +sight in any of the rooms and yet I felt as if some one was there. +Perhaps it was just that I was awed by the disconcerting loveliness of +the portrait of the brunette lady that hung in a tarnished oval frame +above the drawing-room mantel. I looked at her and waited. Presently I +coughed apologetically. + +"Could I please find out if a--er--Miss Day lives here? Or--if anybody +here knows her?" + +The Scotchy voice lifted itself grudgingly above the vigorous swish of +a scrubbing brush. + +"I dinna think ony one's home but th' Sculptor Girl--she's on th' top +floor an' it's not I that knows whether she's in a speaking humor, but +you're weelcoom to try her--" + +It was raining, a miserable spring drizzle, yet the spacious hall +seemed flooded with sunlight. There's an oval skylight fitted with +amber glass; silhouetted against its leaded rims are outlined flying +birds. + +"Hark, hark! The lark at heaven's gate sings!" I read beneath the +margins when I looked up to find the sunlight. I knew that I ought to +feel like an impertinent intruder but I just couldn't! And I defy any +one to go up those wonderful circling stairs and not smile! For at the +head of each flight of steps is a recessed niche such as used to be +built to hold statuary and in the one near the second floor is a flat +vase filled with flowers--little saffron rosebuds the day I passed by +--with an ever so discreet card engraved in sizable old English script +that hinted: + + "One's for you." + +I was still sniffing at my buttonhole when I reached the second niche. +There was a black varnished wicker tray heaped with fruit and a +Brittany platter filled with raison cookies. + +"Aren't you hungry?" the card above them suggested. I nibbled an +apricot all the way up the third flight and almost laughed aloud when +I reached the top, though of course I was expecting something. There's +a yellow glazed vase there, + + "For pits and stones + Or skins and bones" + +and above it in the back of the niche through a marble dolphin's mouth +cold water trickles into a bronze holder with a basket of cups beside +it. + +"Thirsty?" asks the dolphin. + +"Dulcie Dierck" I read on the Sculptor Girl's doorplate. It took me a +full minute to get the courage to tap her gargoyle knocker because I +was so awestricken at remembering that she was the girl who won the +Ambrose Medal and the Pendleton Prize and goodness only knows how much +other loot and glory. + +The door jerked open to let me peer into the cleanest, barest skylit +spot,--with flat creamy walls and a little old fireplace with a +Peggoty grate just like the pictures in "David Copperfield." And a +trig young person who didn't look a bit like an artist, because she +was so neatly belted and so smoothly coiffed, waved a clayey thumb tip +toward a bench by the fire. + +"Sit down and get your breath," she suggested chirkily, "then you +won't feel quite so dumfoundered--" + +An overwhelming sense of my colossal cheekiness made me stammer. + +"Do--do you h-happen to know--" I burst forth desperately, "if there's +really any such person as a--a Miss Day?" + +"Does that fire look real?" + +I nodded. + +"Well, then put another stick on that fire and hang the kettle on the +hob--" she was washing the clay from her hands in an old brass basin. +"Don't get peeved with me because I'm grouchy and bossy--" she flung +over her shoulder at me. "I always start off badly when I'm tired and +that fool question always makes me just darned tireder!" + +She reached for a fat brown teapot and dumped in tea-leaves +recklessly. "I'll be decenter directly I'm fed. I'm a beast just +before tea--you won't find me half bad half an hour from now--" + +We were both silent while the water boiled. She shoved her table +nearer the fire, so near that I found myself looking down at the +writing things that were arranged so primly at one end. There was an +ink bottle on a gray blotter, a pewter tray for pens and a queer +shaped lump of bronze, a paper weight I supposed. I wouldn't have been +human if I could have kept my fingers off that bit of metal. I +pretended to pick it up accidentally but I did it as guiltily as a +child touches something forbidden. She didn't say a word, just watched +me mischievously while she arranged the tea cups on the other end of +the table. Presently she lighted a tiny temple lamp, melted a dab of +sealing wax in its wavering blue flames--rose-colored wax it was--and +it splashed out on the gray blotter like molten fire. + +She took the bit of bronze from my fingers and pressed it firmly on +the wax. + +"It's a mouth--" I murmured. "It's lips--" + +"It's her kiss," she answered me. "That's the most beautiful and the +most difficult thing I ever made. It's Felicia Day's letter seal." + +"Then she really is a real person--" I stammered fatuously. + +"Real?" The girl's low voice lifted itself belligerently. "What do you +think she is? Imitation? Why, she's the one REAL thing in this whole +sham world! I guess you've never met anybody who knew her or you +wouldn't keep gulping out idiotic things like that! I guess if you +ever talked with her even a minute you'd understand how real she is. +She has the crispest--the sincerest way of speaking. Though of course +it's not a bit like other people's ways. She probably doesn't talk +like anybody you've ever listened to. Not like anybody I've ever heard +of anyway." The girl's eyes were glowing. "Are you musical?" she +demanded. "Because I need a musical word to tell you how she talks. +She talks _rubato_. Her short words drawl ever so long and her long ones +hurry so's to let her make up for the stolen time. And she has a sort of +trace of accent like--well, it's not like anything except herself +really. You see, her mother wasn't French but she was brought up with +French people and Felice says 'evaire' and 'nevaire' and uses funny +little Frenchy phrases she heard her mother use though she doesn't +really talk French at all. And she has a bossy way of speaking, kind of +--well, humbly bossing, if you can get me. Talks like a Lady Pied Piper +and sweeps you along with her just about six minutes after she's begun +coaxing you to do whatever she's decided is the best thing for you to +do. Believe me, I know she does it! Because I was one of the first ones +she swept along!" The girl's words were tumbling so fast now that I +could hardly follow. + +"Did you ever find yourself in heaps of trouble? Too much trouble to +stand? Did you? I was that way the day she opened my door. It made me +perfectly furious to have her open my door. And she looked so little +and so old and so frumpy--she'd been sewing all day for my beastly +step-aunt and I'd been trying all day to get the courage to--to--" the +girl's tears were streaming now and she didn't bother to wipe them +away, she seemed utterly unashamed of them, "to get rid of myself. And +just the minute I got the cork out of the bottle that little old angel +opened the door. She was so darned different from anybody I'd ever +seen in all my life and she talked so differently from anybody I'd +ever listened to, I--well, I sort of forgot wanting to die because I +was curious to find out where on earth she'd come from--or where on +earth she was going to! She had a funny little dog under her arm; she +gave it to me to hold. And the next thing I knew she was inviting me +to go home with her. She thought I might like this room, she said. She +told me it was filled 'with-an-abundance-of-weeds-we-have-not-any- +names-for--' Wasn't that an absolute corker? That was her way of +describing the Italian family with too many brats that were living +here. She'd got that apology for 'em out of her great-great-grandma's +garden book! Can you beat it? She talks about everybody as if they +belonged in a garden. She called me--" the girl's lips quivered,--"a +rosebush that had been pruned too much--roots cramped--she said-- +anyway she picked me up to transplant me! Marched me into the +'orrible, messy, noisy, smelly hutch that this house used to be, up +all those eighty 'leven stairs, and she kept her chin in the air as +though it was a royal palace she was taking me into! She just kept +saying, + +"'Come! You'll love, love, love it! And you're going to be proud, +proud, proud to live here--' + +"I was proud, all right," the girl's voice choked. "I wouldn't have +missed living here those next two months, not for all the marble that +was ever quarried nor for all the glory that was Greece! That first +night we both slept in this room--" she paused dramatically and threw +open the door in the east wall to let me peer into the narrow hall +room, "there--see--" + +Ah! that bare little room! So tidy! With faded discolored wall paper +and a scrubbed pine floor! With its battered iron bed! There's an old +table by the one window with a child's silver mug and plate and spoon +on it, each of them with a great bee carved upon it. That's all there +is in that room save a low chair and a superb but shabby walnut bureau. + +"She loved it so much that she wouldn't change it when she was +building Octavia House over--" + +"Octavia House!" I cried. "Why, that's that queer house where all the +young geniuses live! The one that the Peter Alden money built--" + +"It's not a queer house!" the girl defied me. "It's--it's this house! +And you can't say Money built this house! Money couldn't have done it! +Not all the money in the world, couldn't! It wasn't Money! It was-- +Pride! Not the sort of pride that goeth before _de_struction but that +mightier pride that goeth before _con_struction! No, no!" she murmured +vehemently, "it wasn't Money! It was really almost done before the money +came! And she didn't just build the house over, she built all of us +over. And built the whole world over for us all. Just with her pride in +us! Just with the pride she made us feel in ourselves! And do you know, +we were all such self-centered idiots, that it wasn't until after she +was gone that we grasped what she'd done with us? We didn't know the +glory and the wonder of her until after she was gone--" + +"She's not--?" + +The Sculptor Girl answered my half-asked question almost ferociously. + +"Of course she's not dead! She is the alivest person in this whole +world--aliver than you or I can ever be! And yet,--we've lost her. She +isn't just _ours_ any more. And when she was blessedly, absolutely just +ours--we didn't appreciate her. You see, she was so frumpy and absurd +and quiet we didn't think about her--we scarcely saw her. But oh--the +minute when we did see her! It came in a flash for me! I just knew, all +of a sudden, that she was perfectly beautiful--as beautiful as her own +whistle--her lovely, lovely Mademoiselle Folly whistle--" + +"Oh! Oh!" I gasped, "_You can't mean that she was--is--Mademoiselle +Folly?_" + +"Mean it? Didn't you know it? Didn't you ever hear her whistle? Oh, +even now that she's gone it seems to me that I can still hear her +whistling! And no matter what any one has said about it--they couldn't +all of them, put together, say half enough--not even if they all said +things as gushy as the Poetry Girl--she said it was like water +trickling in a moonlit fountain! I only know it's like what I tried to +put into my little Pandora--that it was like what Barrie was thinking +when he let Peter Pan cry, 'I'm Joy! Joy! Joy!'--Even the Painter Boy, +who has a silly pose that he hates music, used to hang around to hear +her whistle--he pretended he was just looking at her so's he could +paint her, but that didn't fool me--Listen, there's Nor' stumping up +stairs now--he's awfully lame on these rainy days and _that_ moody--" + +"Do you mean Noralla? The one who did 'The Spirit of Romance'? Does he +live here?" + +She nodded impishly. + +"And Thad, the cartoonist and Blythe Modder and--" she began reeling +off a victorious list of young celebrities. + +"And that one little dressmaker discovered you all?" I asked, quite +awestricken, "How could she? What sort of a wonder was she? How can +you explain it?" + +The girl swung her lithe self up on the table, clasped her narrow +hands about her knees and smiled benignly down upon me. She seemed +naively content with herself, relaxed and quiet after her tempestuous +storm of words. + +"You can't explain it, you just accept it--just as you accept sunshine +and rain--you can't explain any more than you can describe. And she's +the sort of woman that all of us who dwell within this house will go +on all the rest of our lives trying to describe and I'll bet that not +all of us put together can tell more'n half that there is to tell +about her. Why, her very faults are different than other people's +faults! She has a pippin of a temper and such stub-stub-stubborn ways! +Don't you think Thad's cartoons of 'Temperamental Therese' are +peaches? Well, they are nothing but Felice in her illogical crotchety +unfair minutes--Thad says the only way to explain such heavenly +rudeness as Felicia's is to remember that she began being rude in +1817--" + +"How old is she?" I fairly shouted, "Oh, please get down to earth and +tell me something definite about her! You're perfectly maddening!" + +The girl jumped lightly to the floor and slipped across the room to +swing the casement in the north wall and let me peer down into +Felicia's garden. If you'll look on the back of your envelope you can +see just how it was, just how the walls shut off the rectory yard. + +"She's exactly twenty-seven," she sighed, "the most perfect age to be! +And if you were really going to tell her story you wouldn't have to go +back all the way to 1817, you'd begin it about--well, let me see-- +you'd begin it about 1897, I think, and right down there in that wee +little garden. And of course you'd begin it with her whistling. And +you'd ask anybody you were trying to tell about her whether they'd +ever heard Mademoiselle Folly whistle--" + +Did you? For if you have, I'm sure you've never forgotten the droll +way that Mademoiselle Folly stepped out upon a stage in her quaint +green frock and made her frightened curtsy. Can you recall her low +contralto drawl and her inevitable, + +"Oh, my dears, I do _so_ hope that you're going to be good at +pretending! You all of you look as though you could pretend if you +just started! So let's you and I pretend that--" + +Oh, I do so hope that you, too, are going "to be good at pretending"! +That you can make yourself pretend that it's twenty years ago and that +you're a nice invisible somebody standing down in a wee back yard of +Felicia's. From the garden you can't see the river because the walls +are too high. But now you're so close to them you see that they're +crumbly brick walls almost covered with vines and that at prim +intervals along their tops there are elaborate wrought-iron urns, each +filled with a huge dusty century plant. And in the side wall toward +the rectory yard of the church you can see an unused iron gate, its +rusty lock and hinges matted through and through with ancient ivy. +Pretend that it's moon-light and it's spring and that it's early +evening in the year of our Lord 1897 and that over there by the gate +is Felicia Day, about seven years old, peering through the gate into +the rectory yard, laughing softly as she always laughs on choir +practise nights. There was a certain bald dyspeptic choirmaster who +was most irritable as he drilled his unruly boy choir and on warm +evenings, when the oaken door under the heavy Gothic arches of the +church was ajar, she could watch their garbed figures and wide opened +mouths as they giggled over Gregorian chants under the swaying altar +lights. + +Once the tallest, naughtiest boy of all, the one with the cherubic +"soprano" voice that was just threatening to break into piping +uselessness, had climbed to the top of the wall and dropped his little +black velvet cap at her feet. + +"Get down from that wall!" the choirmaster had shouted. + +Though the boy had ducked from view as suddenly as he had appeared he +had managed to demand of the small person under the wall, + +"Who are you, girl?" + +She was holding the cap tightly while she answered, + +"I don't know, 'zactly who I are--" when she heard the choirmaster +shrieking, + +"Dudley Hamilt! Come here at once!" + +And though she watched every choir-practise night for ever so long she +never caught another glimpse of the mischievous-eyed boy, a nasal- +voiced woman sang in his stead and she never, never climbed walls. + +But Felicia always waited patiently with the small black cap in her +hands until a night when she summoned courage to call softly through +the barred gate, + +"Dudley! Dudley Hamilt!" + +A fat boy ran to her and jeered, + +"He's expelled! He can't come back till he's a tenor!" + +So that's what you must pretend! That you can smile in the shadows of +that moonlit garden, that you can smile at a dear little stupid who is +waiting joyously for the time when Dudley Hamilt will come back a +tenor! + + + + +CHAPTER I + +IN THE BARRED GARDEN + + +She was a distinctly droll looking child at the age of seven, our +little Felicia Day! With straight black hair brushed smoothly back and +bound with a "circle comb," with short-waisted dresses that left her +neck and arms bare. Her slender feet were encased in short white socks +and low black slippers. And at her dear little feet was usually-- +Babiche. + +Babiche was so old that she whined at the evening chill; she +perpetually teased to be taken back to her comfortable cushion at the +foot of her mistress's bed. She was really very amusing when she sat +up on her haunches and begged to be carried. For she was so fat that +she hated to walk and she was a very spoiled doggy, that wee spaniel! +A sort of a dowager queen of a doggy, a nice little old grandma lady +of a dog. + +The gentle yap-yap-yapping that could always be heard beyond the rear +wall was from the throats of some score or more of her expensive +great-great-great offspring who lived in the stable in tiny stalls +with their pedigree cards tacked neatly under their elaborate kennel +names. + +It was a cross to Felice that she was not allowed to go through the +small arched doorway at the back of the garden that led to the stable +that opened on the narrow cobblestone "Tradespersons' Street." The +Major didn't approve of the manners of Zeb Smathers the kennel man, or +Zeb's wife Marthy, though he knew there wasn't a pair with their +patience and skill to be found for miles around. All the same Felice +adored the stable yard and would have dearly loved to climb the narrow +stairs up to the low-ceilinged rooms above the stables where Marthy +liked to sit. + +Lean, grizzled old Marthy! There was usually a dog or two in her lap, +either a sickly pup or a grieving-eyed mother dog whose babies had +been taken away from her. Such tiny creatures, even the mother dogs-- +those little Blenheim spaniels! Snub-nosed, round-headed with long +silky flopping ears, soft curly coats and feathery tails. Felice liked +the yellow and white ones, and always reached for them, but her +grandfather coolly "weeded them out," as Zeb expressed it, because the +Trenton ideal was a white dog marked with red. + +Felicia knew when the dogs were going away. They always went the day +after the Basket Man came with a pole tied full of oval gilded wicker +hampers. Sometimes she, was allowed to stand in the gateway and watch +them have their farewell bath, only of course she sniffed +uncomfortably when Zeb let brown drops drip into the rinsing water +from a fat bottle with a gay red skull and cross-bones on the label. +"Scarbolic" was what she understood it to be, she mustn't touch it or +she'd "go dead," whatever that was. But she forgot all about the smell +as she watched the fluffy doggies drying in the sunny stable yard +while Marthy sang vociferously to cheer her own drooping spirits; the +silly old woman never could bear the days the dogs went away. + +And so Felice on her side of the gate could listen rapturously to the +throaty drone in which Marthy asked the world + + "What's this dull town to me? + Rob-in's not here--" + +or warbled heavily + + "Churry Ripe, Churry Ripe, + Who'll buy my churries--" + +or wailed + + "Where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? + Where have you been, charming Billy?" + +It almost made up for not being allowed to go out of the garden. + +If Felice only could have been allowed to go around into the +Tradespersons' Street just once! I wish she could have gone--just +once! On one of the days when the swinging sign, that was gilded and +painted so beautifully, was hung outside to announce + + "KING CHARLES AND BLENHEIM SPANIELS + For sale within." + +I'm sure she would have loved the line of carriages waiting in the +cobble-stoned alley when the fine ladies came to buy. I think she +would have clapped her hands at the gay boxes of geraniums and the crisp +white curtains in Marthy's shining windows over the stable door. + +But she could only stay in the garden with the thin visaged old French +woman who taught her to read and to write and to embroider and to play +upon an old lute and to curtsy and to dance. One thing she learned +that the French woman did not teach her--to whistle! She remembers +answering the sea-gulls who mewed outside in the harbor and the +sparrows who twittered in the ivy and the tiny pair of love-birds who +dwelt in a cage at her mother's bedroom window. She learned to whistle +without distorting her lips because her grandfather had forbidden her +to whistle and if she held her mouth almost normal he couldn't tell +when he looked out into the garden whether it was Felice or the birds +who were twittering. + +Her first memories of her mother were extremely vague. She remembers +she was pretty and smiling and that most of the time she lay in a +"sleighback" bed and that in the morning she would say, + +"Go out into the garden and be happy," and that at twilight she would +say, "You look as though you had been very happy in the garden--" + +Sometimes Maman wasn't awake when Felicia came in from her long day in +the garden. And the little girl always knew if her mother's door were +closed that she must tiptoe softly so as not to disturb her. There was +a reward for being quiet. In the niche of the stairway Felice would +find a good-night gift--sometimes a cooky in a small basket or an +apple or a flower,--something to make a little girl smile even if her +mother was too tired or too ill to say good-night. She never clambered +past the other niches that she didn't whimsically wish there was a +Maman on every floor to leave something outside for her. So after a +time the canny child began leaving things for herself, tucked slyly +back where the housemaids wouldn't find them. She used to hide her +silver mug with water at the very top stair because she was so thirsty +from the climb. + +She was always happy in Maman's room and in the garden but she had +many unhappy times in that nursery. It was at the very top of the back +of the house. From the barred windows under the carved brownstone +copings she could peer out at the ships in the harbor and the shining +green of Battery Park. The nursery had a fireplace just opposite the +door that connected with the tiny room in which the old French woman +slept. Both these rooms had been decorated with a landscape paper +peopled with Watteau shepherds and shepherdesses and oft-repeated +methodical groups of lambs. On the cold mornings she was bathed beside +the fire--which she very much hated--and once when she was especially +angry at the sharp dash of the bath sponge against her thin shoulders +she clutched at the flabby dripping thing with all her might and sent +it hurtling through the doorway where it splashed against the side +wall of the tiny room and smudged out the flock of a simpering +shepherdess. And instead of being sorry that she had obliterated the +paper lambs she remembers shaking her fist at the discolored spot and +shrieking "Nevaire come back, nevaire!" + +Mademoiselle D'Ormy made her tell Maman. Mademoiselle's disapproval +made it seem an admirable crime until Maman said ever se gently, + +"I'm sorry you were unhappy!" + +"_I was happy_," persisted Felicia, "I was proud, proud, proud when I +threw it!" + +"But you made Mademoiselle unhappy and you've made me unhappy--and you +can't be truly happy, Felicia, when you're making some one else +unhappy--" + +Felicia discovered that she couldn't. Not with Maman's gentle eyes +looking into hers, so she threw herself on her knees and kissed her +mother's hand. Just as she had seen her grandfather kiss it. + +"Let's pretend!" she whispered, "Let's pretend I didn't do it! Now +let's pretend I'm Grandy!" + +Pretending she was her Grandfather Trenton was one of their most +delicious games. She would tap on the door, delicately, and ask in +mincing imitation of the French woman, + +"Madame, will you see ze Major?" Then, with great dignity she would +advance to the bedside. + +"Ah! Octavia!" she would say, eloquently, "How charming you look to- +day!" + +For that was what Grandy always said when he came into the room to see +Maman. + +You'd have liked Major Trenton. You'd have liked him a lot. But you +could have liked him more if he'd been a little kinder to Felice. For +by one of those strange, unexplained twists of human nature this fine +gentleman, who was so tolerant with his uncouth servants and so +admirably gentle with his wee dogs, was unconsciously cruel to the +small grand-daughter who so adored him. She adored his immaculate +neatness, the ruddy pinkness of his skin; she loved his wavy white +hair and the deep sparkle of his dark eyes. She saw nothing droll +about the peaked felt hat and long black coat that he persisted in +wearing, or about the ruffled shirt, with its absurd flaring collar +and black satin stock. She even loved the empty coat sleeve pinned +inside his breast pocket. She thought him the most beautiful human in +the whole world. She lived in constant dread of what Grandy would or +would not be pleased to have her do. And though she was unaware of it, +her everyday behavior was exactly what that silent man had so ordered. +She did not know there was a God because the Major was an atheist--who +out-Ingersolled Robert G. in the violence of his denial of deity. She +did not know there was a world of reality outside the garden because +he did not choose to have her mingle with that world. She was not +taught French because he vowed he hated France and the French and all +their ways. She was taught to curtsy and to dance because it pleased +him to have a woman walk well and he believed dancing kept the figure +supple. She was taught needlework because he thought it seemly for a +woman to sew and he liked the line of the head and neck bent over an +embroidery frame. She was taught to knit because he remembered that +his mother had told him that delicate finger tips were daintily +polished by an hour's knitting a day. He was--though he wouldn't have +admitted it--proud of her slender hands--they looked exactly as his +wife's had looked. It was the only trait she had inherited from that +particular ancestor and he had been inordinately vain of his wife's +hands. Mademoiselle had been ordered never to let the child "spread +her hand by opening door knobs or touching the fire-stones--or--er-- +any clumsy thing--" and it was droll to see the little girl, digging +in her bit of garden with those lovely hands incased in long flopping +cotton gloves--not to forget the broad sunbonnet that shaded her +earnest little face. In short, he was jealous of her complexion and +her manners--But beyond that and the desire that she absolutely efface +herself, he did not concern himself with his granddaughter. + +It was really her mother's gentle tact that fostered love for the +stern old man. While Felice was still young, Octavia began to teach +her child pride of race. The pretty invalid was pathetically eager to +have Felice impressed with the dignity of Major Trenton's family. + +"If you look over the dining-room fireplace you can see how fine his +father was--" + +So the child stared up the stately panelled wall at the gloomy old +portrait of Judge Trenton with his much curled wig and black satin +gown and the stiff scroll of vellum with fat be-ribboned seals +attached and asked naively, + +"If your father was a judge-man why aren't we judge-mens?" Grandy +laughed his short, hard laugh. + +"Oh, because we've gone straight to the dogs--and very small bow-wows +at that--" + +It was about this time that Octavia began to teach Felice to play +chess. The child hated it. It must have taken a sort of magnificent +patience to teach her. For a long time no one save Mademoiselle D'Ormy +had known what a struggle it meant for that gay little invalid to make +herself lovely for that afternoon hour over the chess board. Yet, when +the Major entered he would always find his daughter smiling from her +heap of gay rose-colored cushions, her thin hair curled prettily under +her lace cap and her hand extended for his courteous kiss. They were +almost shyly formal with each other, those two, while Mademoiselle +D'Ormy screwed the tilt table into place and brought the ebony box of +carved chess men. It was leaning forward to move the men that took so +much strength. Octavia was too proud to admit how weak she was +growing. So she coaxed her small daughter, + +"It will be a little stupid at first, Cherie, but we will try to make +it go--and think what fun it will be that day when we tell the Major, +'It is Felice and not stupid old Octavia who is going to play with +you.' First you shall learn where to move the pieces and how to tell +me what Grandy has moved--then, we shall tie a handkerchief over my +eyes--as we do when you and I play hide the thimble--my hands shall +not touch the men at all. I shall say 'Pawn to Queen's Rook's square' +and you shall put this little man here--this is the Queen's Rook's +square--" It must have been the oddest game in the world, really, +between that stern old man and the blindfolded invalid and the grave +little girl who was learning to play. Of course it was easier for +Octavia--she didn't have to move her hands or keep her eyes open. She +could lie lower on the pillows--she smiled--a wavering smile when her +father's triumphant "Check!" would ring out. + +"Alas, Felice!" she would murmur gaily, "are we not stupid! Together +we can't checkmate him--" They talked a great deal about chess. And +how you can't expect to do so much with pawns and how you mustn't mind +if you lose them. But how carefully you must guard the queen--or else +you'll lose your king--and how if "You just learn a little day by day +soon you'll have a gambit," and how "even if you don't care much about +doing the silly game, you like it because you know that it gives +Grandy much happiness." + +It was in those days that Felice learned that not only must she keep +very happy herself but she must keep other people happy. + +"It's not easy," Octavia assured her, "but it's rather amusing. It's a +game too. You see some one who is tired or cross or worried and you +think 'This isn't pleasant for him or for me!' Then you think of +something that may distract the tiredness or the worry--maybe you play +softly on the lute--maybe you suggest chess--maybe you tell something +very droll that happened in the garden or the kennel--he doesn't +suspect why you're telling him, at first he scarcely seems to hear you +and then--when he does stop thinking about the unpleasantness--he +smiles!--Watch Grandfather when he says 'Check!' and you will see what +I mean--" + +One comfort was, Felice didn't have to play chess all of the days. +Never on the days when Certain Legal Matters came. Then Grandfather +disappeared into the gloomy depths of the library and from the garden +Felice could hear the disagreeable grumble of the burly lawyer as he +consulted with his extraordinary old client. + +"Absolutely no! Absolutely no!" her grandfather's voice would ring +out, "I tell you I will not! A man who takes a pension for doing his +duty to his country is despicable! And as for the other matter--I do +not have to touch anything that was my wife's! I do not approve of the +manner whereby she obtained that income--if Octavia wishes it, that is +a different matter--it can be kept for the child if Octavia chooses to +look at the matter that way--but for myself I will not touch it! I do +not require it--I will not touch it--it was a bad business--There is +nothing quixotic about my refusal, nothing whatever, sir! We differ +absolutely on that point, as we do on most others!" + +Felicia heard that speech so often that she could almost have recited +it, she heard it nearly every time that Certain Legal Matters +appeared, he always put the Major in a temper. Grandy couldn't get +himself sufficiently calm for chess on such days. + +Nor did she play chess on the days when the Wheezy came to sew. + +The advent of the Wheezy was an enormous affair in Felice's life. It +was one of the first times that the child was taken outside of the +house or the garden--that blustery March day when she and Mademoiselle +walked around the corner to a small house in whose basement window +rested a sign, WOMAN'S EXCHANGE AND EMPLOYMENT AGENCY. A tiny bell +jingled as they entered and from behind the curtains at the rear +emerged a little woman whose face looked like the walnuts that were +served with grandpapa's wine, very disagreeable indeed. Felice always +spoke of her as The Disagreeable Walnut. It was in this shop that she +saw her first doll, a ridiculous fat affair constructed of a hank of +cotton with shoe buttons for eyes and a red silk embroidered mouth and +an enormous braid of string for hair. And it was while she was +rapturously contemplating it that she heard the wizened proprietor say, +"Do you wish to have the work done by the job or by the day?" Then the +Disagreeable Walnut pompously consulted a huge dusty ledger from which +she decided that a certain Miss Pease would suit their requirements. + +"Two dollars a day and lunch," she informed them curtly and that was +the way that Wheezy came into Felicia's life. + +Short, fat, asthmatic and crotchety, she grumbled incessantly because +there wasn't anything so modern as a sewing machine in the house and +said that for her part she didn't see how people thought they could +get along on nothing except what had done for their ancestors, that +she certainly couldn't. + +"Haven't you any ancestors?" Felice asked her eagerly. The Wheezy +snorted. + +"Of course. And they have been poor but they were honest," she added +deeply. + +Which Felice repeated gravely to Grandy in the garden and added +eagerly, "Were our ancestors poor but honest?" + +He smiled grimly. + +"I shouldn't say," he answered her curtly, "that they were either +conspicuously poor or conspicuously honest." + +The Wheezy not only remodeled ancient dresses into stiff pinafores for +Felice but she had to make the cushions that fitted in the dog +hampers, down-stuffed oval affairs covered with heavy dull blue silk. +The Wheezy sputtered that she couldn't see why "under the shining +heavens, dogs should sleep on things traipsed out like comp'ny bedroom +pin-cushions with letters tied onto their collars--" + +Which so puzzled Felice that on one of those furtive occasions when +she managed a few words with Zeb she demanded an answer. Zeb slapped +his sides and chuckled. + +"Because, Missy, putting on the frills and writing out the pedigree in +French like he does makes folks pay jes' about twict as much for those +dogs--" + +Which was very bewildering, for Felice had not the remotest idea in +this world what to pay for anything meant. How could she? + +There was one very vivid recollection of Octavia. The recollection of +the only time that the child remembered seeing her mother in a chair. +How this miracle was accomplished only Octavia and Mademoiselle D'Ormy +could have told, but on a certain day in a chair she was and the heavy +rose silk curtains were drawn before the bed alcove and the room was +gay with flowers and a ruddy fire glowed in the iron grate under the +carved white mantlepiece. Felice sat adoringly on a footstool at her +feet and they talked a great deal about a time when Maman should not +only sit in a chair but should walk. It seemed that Octavia hoped to +take her daughter to a place she referred to rather vaguely as The +House in the Woods. Octavia had lived in this house in the woods when +she was a girl and she was very much worried about what might have +happened to the garden of that house. She thought that she and Felice +ought to make it lovely again--if Piqueur were only still strong +enough to help them. But before Felice had had time to find out just +who Piqueur was, Mademoiselle had ushered in a curly-haired young man +who carried a portfolio exactly like the one that Certain Legal +Matters carried. And it was while Mademoiselle was taking Felice back +to the garden that she heard her mother say, + +"You must be patient with the silly fears of a woman who mistrusts all +lawyers--these deeds are duplicates of those that another--" + +In the garden Felice told Mademoiselle D'Ormy who the curly-haired +person was--it was not for nothing that Felice had been staring at the +pictures in the big Shakespeare Illustrated on the drawing-room table. + +"It's the Portia Person who is talking with Maman--" she assured +Mademoiselle gravely, "she looks like a man but she's really a lady--" + +The Portia Person was surely as gentle as a lady when he hurried into +the garden a little later and sent Mademoiselle back to his client by +the fireside. He looked down at Felice--she was embroidering that day, +seated primly before the ebony tambour frame. + +"Felicia," he said chokily, "will you try to remember something? Will +you try to remember--if--if your mother goes away and you're ever in +trouble that you're to come to see me? That my name is Ralph--John +Ralph? And that you'll find me at Temple Bar, here in Brooklyn?" + +"Yes, Portia Person," she answered sweetly, after she had risen as +Mademoiselle had told her to when a visitor should arrive. Although +she must have been eleven she was trembling with excitement, because +he was her first visitor. "Yes, Portia Person, I will--only, how will +I know--that I am in--Trouble--where is Trouble?" + +Which seemed to make it hard for the Portia Person. + +"I mean, if there's anything you need that you haven't--if there's +anything you want some one to tell you about--now do you know?" + +She nodded thoughtfully. + +"Why, there are things right now that I want some one to tell me +about--" + +Before he could tell her any of them Mademoiselle came swiftly and let +him out through the stable gate talking excitably and softly in +French, which Felicia thought most unfair of her. + +It is not at all strange that she does not remember when her mother +died. You see sometimes there were several days when her mother was +too tired or too ill to see such a vigorous person as Felice must have +been. She merely remembers that there came a time when she was no +longer asked to tiptoe past the door on the second floor landing. But +she does remember that the thin visaged old French woman wept one day +when she asked her, + +"Shall we not go tell Maman I was happy today in the garden?" + +She remembers it because they were the first tears she had ever seen +and she clapped her hands and said "How queer, Mademoiselle! There are +little rains in your eyes." + +She did not ask to see her mother any more, for when she did +Mademoiselle would answer "Not to-day." It was somehow a rather +difficult time for them all; the Major was morose and sullen and +Mademoiselle often had "little rains" in her eyes. She was not very +patient with the lively young person who had grown tall enough to +reach even the topmost drawer of the high walnut bureau. + +Felicia was exploring them thoroughly one rainy afternoon while +Mademoiselle dozed by the nursery fireside. She found a beautiful box +with an inlaid cover that was filled with all sorts of fascinating +trinkets; earrings and breastpins and droll bracelets of tarnished +silver set with jade and coral--queer little letters folded in +triangles with gay red wax seals, addressed in French, most of them--a +soft black lace shawl--Felicia was trailing about grandly when +Mademoiselle awoke to rage and scold. + +The child was beginning to long for freedom, she was constantly +questioning. Octavia's gentle raillery, Octavia's delicious half +answers to the "Whys and wheres and whens and whats" had satisfied, +but Mademoiselle's abrupt, "I can't tell you--" "It does not concern +you--" "Zat is not of consequence--" were teaching the child to +scheme. She was perpetually trying to find out for herself the things +that Mademoiselle declined to tell her. She was especially curious +about Maman's closed door. Mademoiselle refused to open it. + +But there came a day, when Mademoiselle wasn't looking, when Felice +tapped gently at her mother's door and opened it and went in. And when +she saw the empty bed and the empty chair she ran in great glee to her +grandfather. + +"Oh, Oh," she cried, "Why didn't you tell me that Maman had gone to +the House in the Woods? Why didn't you let me go with her? For she +said we would make the garden together!" + +He did not answer her at once. + +"How did you know?" + +"Because Babiche is gone," she answered triumphantly. "And Babiche +wouldn't be gone from the house unless Maman were gone--so they've +gone to the House in the Woods--to attend to the garden--with--" she +frowned until she remembered "with Piqueur--unless he is too old to +help--and now I will go--" + +It was curious how his voice faltered, he looked tireder and more +unhappy than in the days when Octavia had made a game of making him +happy. + +"Felicia," he groped for words as he faced the questioning-eyed child, +"I--we--you--cannot go to the House in the Woods just now--I have +Certain Legal Matters that must be attended to--but we--we will go +some day--" + +She accepted this with all the earnestness of her eleven years. But at +the door she paused, shyly. He looked very "cross and worried." + +"This afternoon, if you wish," she said, "I will play chess with you. +I can do three gambits. I tried them alone yesterday. We'll not play +in Maman's room--but in the garden--" + +But for some strange reason he did not smile at all when he called +"Check!" He only bent his head over her hand and kissed it as he had +kissed her mother's. It was the first caress he had ever given her. +She put the hand against her cheek and loved it when he was gone. And +clambering up to bed she paused outside her mother's door. + +"Maman, we were a little happy in the garden--" she whispered, "were +you happy in your garden?" + +Interminable days followed, dreary days punctuated with quarrel after +quarrel. It sometimes seemed to Octavia's unhappy daughter that there +was nothing she could touch without Mademoiselle's disapproval. + +The garments that had hung in the wardrobes, lovely things that +tempted the beauty-loving child, were all packed away in the storeroom +back of the linen closet; the bits of ornaments and jewelry that +Octavia had let the child play with were all tucked away. + +"It was Maman's--do not touch it!" "That was Louisa's, you cannot have +it!" Or most fearful cry of all, "Put that shawl back, Felicia! It was +Madame Josepha's--Louisa herself never wore it, it cost so much!" + +The storeroom key was kept in the pocket of Mademoiselle's black silk +apron. Gradually the miserly soul locked away all that seemed +desirable or lovely to Felicia. + +Of course there came a day when she stole the key and when she hid +herself a whole blissful afternoon and rummaged joyously through dusty +bandboxes and huge curved-top trunks. She had opened an iron-bound box +last. And in the top had found a case marked, + + "Mme. J. Trenton, + 8 Rue de la--" + +the rest was blurred. There were a lot of papers--all of them in +French, in a queer old case of crushed leather. And when she thrust +them carelessly underneath she found the tiniest muslin garments she +had ever seen. They puzzled her greatly; she held one against her +cheek instinctively. + +"What a very little woman must have worn you--" she whispered, "As +little as--" she frowned, "the thing made of string in the shop where +we got the Wheezy--as little as Babiche. I wish--I wish I could have +seen as little a woman as that--" + +She sprang up startled, Mademoiselle was coming. Felicia had the door +locked and was standing outside, a slim, dusty, shining-eyed figure +when the woman began berating her. The girl slid cunningly along the +wall, for Mademoiselle's wrinkled, trembling hand was stretched out as +she demanded the key. + +There was a grating, a round bronze grating in the side wall for the +furnace pipe. Felice moved toward it. She was not answering +Mademoiselle; just breathing hard, just staring. + +Suddenly the key dropped. The two could hear it tinkling, down, down, +through the rusty metal of the furnace pipe. + +And that was the moment that the infuriated little French woman struck +Felice. + +The child was nearly as tall as the woman, she could have struck back, +but instead she ran. She fled down the stairway, her angry breath +coming in choking gasps. She flung herself against the door of her +mother's room. + +"Maman! Maman!" she screamed. + +And that was where the Major found her. + +"I hate--hate--hate--Mademoiselle!" And down the stair came the thin +visaged French woman crying. + +"And I monsieur, I hate zis ongrateful child! I theenk I hate your +whole ongrateful race--I served your wife like one slave! And for Miss +Octavia I was like two slaves! Zis child has ever hated me! I am weary +of your whole race--I shall go back to ze country where I belong--" + +So there they stood, those two antagonists, the woman with her eyes +snapping and the outraged child with the tears streaming. + +"Felicia," the Major's tone was terrifying, "you must apologize at +once!" + +Felicia was silent. She shook her head. The Major bowed to the French +woman. "I apologize for her," he continued. "But I think Mademoiselle +D'Ormy, you are right. She is growing into a woman and you are growing +into a child--" And whatever else he said after Felice had fled to the +garden doesn't matter. Yet two days later when Mademoiselle bade her +farewell the two enemies flung themselves on each others' necks and +wept. Much to the disgust of the Major, who fairly shoved Mademoiselle +away and who appeared not to see the sobbing and impetuous young +person who dashed headlong to the nursery. + +But after that life was much more serene, much sweeter. To be sure she +could no longer ransack the storeroom. She never had to explain to the +Major what had occasioned that last tempestuous quarrel but she roamed +at will through the whole dusty house and possessed herself gloriously +of all its treasures. + +You should have seen her in those days, tricking herself out in what +finery she could muster from the walnut bureau. For after +Mademoiselle's departure the afternoon chess prolonged itself into +twilight and Felicia proudly dined with the Major instead of in the +nursery. + +She knew how one should look for dinner because there was Maman's +portrait over the drawing-room fireplace, in the frock she'd worn when +she had dined "with her family in France--" Mademoiselle had dressed +Octavia for that wonderful party and she had never tired of telling +Felicia how beautiful the eighteen-year Octavia had been. + +"It is a woman's duty to think of her charms," Mademoiselle had said, +"that is what the husband of Julie, Madame Recamier, said, it is what +Madame Louise taught Miss Octavia--" + +And so Felicia naively parted her hair and brushed it satin-smooth and +coiled it neatly on the nape of her white neck with the same big +carved coral Spanish comb tucked into the shining mass that Octavia +had worn when she sat for the portrait. Sometimes she wore the lovely +black lace shawl, sometimes the creamy white embroidered silk one, and +always the delicate coral and silver jewelry. Yet she couldn't +possibly have known from the pale image that stared back at her from +the dim shimmer of the drawing-room mirrors, how exquisitely lovely +she was, not even when the Major bent over her hand and said, as he +had said so often to her mother, + +"You are very charming today, my dear!" + +He did not know himself, the grim old stoic, how much he adored her. + +At length there came a certain spring, seductive, too early warm, when +the Major grew thoughtful, when Certain Legal Matters came frequently +in the evening and left Felicia to ponder over her embroidery frame or +wander restlessly in the bit of garden. She was seventeen now, a +glowing, radiant seventeen, so divinely happy that the Major smiled +whenever he looked at her. + +For it had come, the Beautiful, Wonderful time when they were going to +the House in the Woods! Already the rooms were filled with trunks and +packing boxes, Marthy and Zeb and the housemaids were sorting and +folding incessantly. And around them, wandered, starry-eyed, a useless +young person who hugged to her heart a joyous dream of a woman in a +garden--a woman in a little lace cap and a trailing rose-colored +dressing-gown, a woman who would say, + +"Oh Felicia! I hope you'll be happy today in the garden!" + +You mustn't blame the Major too much that he did not know what a cruel +thing he had done--he did not even dream that Felicia believed she was +going to find Octavia in the garden. Those long ago evasions that had +silenced her little-girl questions he had forgotten. Indeed I think he +never let himself remember those days in which the child had asked, +"Where is she gone?" + +And so they had come to the last night of all, the night before they +should start their journey. + +Inside the gloomy library grandfather and Certain Legal Matters +discussed stupid details about where the furniture should go to +storage and whether they should change the route and instead of going +around the coast by steamer and down the St. Lawrence, travel part of +the way overland--they consulted long yellow time-tables. + +Felicia drifted across the dismantled library. She was pulling +Octavia's adorable white lace shawl about her firm young shoulders, +the flickering gas lights made her rather pale. + +"It's hot--" she remarked plaintively. "I think I'll go into the +garden--" Her grandfather nodded. She slipped through the French +windows out to the narrow balcony and down the circular iron stairway. + +A thousand million stars above her, shining through the tops of the +old trees of heaven--a tender breeze that blew Marthy's curtains ever +so gently and let the wistaria banners stream back and forth--if she +shoved it carefully, that smallest iron bench, and then stood tiptoe +upon it, she could peer through the top of the gate into the rectory +yard. + +Fairy land! A score of merry young humans dashing about--a babble of +noise and laughter and the dyspeptic choir master nearly wild with the +confusion--"Order! Order!" he screamed, "Ladies and gentlemen! Boys! +Kindly remember this is the last rehearsal, the final rehearsal! When +the organist begins the choir should file in very slowly--the +principals remain outside until the choir is in--I would like the +tenor and the baritone soloists' voices to sound as far off as +possible as they approach--will those gentlemen be so good as to stand +at the extreme end of the yard?" + +Felicia, behind the ivied gate, caught her breath. For as the rather +disorderly procession drifted away through the arch the soloists moved +easily toward her. One of them was disgracefully fat, he puffed as he +mopped his brow, but the other walked lightly, tossing his cap +boyishly as he walked. Close to the wall, he laughed, a youthful, +buoyant laugh, + +"Jove!" he ejaculated, "Now I _have_ done it--my cap's on top of the +wall--" + +The music was growing softer, fainter, the fat man had cleared his +throat for singing. + +Felicia's heart stood still. The moon shone gloriously, it made little +white eyes of the narcissi that stared up at her from the garden +border. The wind stirred in the ivy. Felicia sighed. His head, +beautifully rumpled, topped the wall, he was still laughing softly, +talking to the man below. + +"Second cap I lost here, lost one when I was a little shaver--there +was a girl--" + +He was looking straight into her eyes now, he caught at the rusty top +of the gate and stared. + +"Why--girl!" he murmured. + +Oh! if you could have seen Felice! Felice, with her hair coifed +smoothly on her dear little head! Felice, with the big carved Spanish +comb holding that hair in place! And her white, white throat and the +tangle of old lace about it! He stared into her grave young eyes, he +looked at that lovely young mouth of hers, that mouth that was wide +enough for laughter but small enough for kisses. They swayed toward +each other, those two, as naturally as a butterfly sways toward a +flower. He kissed her. + +As she leaned toward him the treacherous bench toppled too far. She +dropped away from his caress as suddenly as a star falls in the +heavens. She lay in a little crumpled heap crushing the sweetness of +the narcissi. She didn't know what had happened to her, she just lay +there and laughed softly and put her hand to her mouth gently. + +A perfect din of voices blotted out her consciousness. After all you +know, a sprained ankle is a sprained ankle even if you don't know you +have it. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS + + +However good at pretending Felice might wish you to be she would never +like you to pretend you were the crumpled little person that Major +Trenton and Certain Legal Matters picked up from the narcissi border. +It wasn't only her sprained ankle that frightened her, though that +hurt dreadfully of course, but it was all of the persons running with +lanterns, the housemaids from the kitchen and Zeb and Marthy from the +stable, and from over the top of the wall had vaulted an enormously +tall young man who had insisted on dashing off for a doctor. Just +having so many persons about all at once terrified her. + +But when the ankle was bandaged and the doctor had left her lying +comfortably on her own bed with Marthy beside her, Grandfather came +and sent Marthy away. It was nearly midnight, the world outside was +still save for the hoarse sounds of the shipping craft outside in the +bay. + +"You may as well know," said the Major sternly, "that I happened to +look out of the window, just before you fell--this young man who was +kissing you has been chivalrous enough to insist that it was quite all +his fault, that you did not know he was going to kiss you--but of +course I am not so stupid as to believe that you did not expect +something of the sort when you climbed up to the top of the wall. +Knowing the women of your race as I do I might have suspected +something of the sort--" he folded his arms, and looked so stern in +the dim light of her bedside lamp that Felicia shivered, "et I hardly +thought you would have the opportunity, carefully guarded as you have +been. I have told the young man that he must make no further attempt +to see you. And the doctor assures me you will be able to continue the +journey that we have planned." + +And when he was gone and Marthy had come back to put out the light +Felicia asked just one thing. + +"Did Maman have to stay in bed because she fell off a bench?" + +Marthy's gruff voice cleared itself in her throat, she wasn't sure +whether she wanted to laugh or cry at the absurd question. + +"Not for that," she answered briefly, "don't let that fret ye, my +precious lamb, that foot of yours will be good as new in the matter of +a week maybe." + +"Even if it wasn't evaire," Felicia persisted, "I'd be proud, proud, +proud I climbed the wall--I shall tell Maman so--" + +There was a long silence in the room. The lamp was out now; Marthy was +at the door ready to go. Felice could only feel her approaching the +bed. Her rough kindly voice blurred out of the darkness. + +"Precious lamb, were you thinking to see your mother?" + +In spite of her aching ankle the girl sat up in the bed. She laughed +softly. + +"Silly old Marthy! Don't you know? That's what we're going to the +House in the Woods for--to see how Maman has made her garden lovely--I +was so proud, proud, proud when I knew Grandy was going to take me-- +I've waited so long since Maman went away--" + +"God forgive him!" moaned Marthy, so softly that the girl did not hear +her, but aloud she said compassionately, "Don't be settin' your heart +too much--on seeing her--" and shut the door softly without saying +goodnight. + +But when the kindly soul came to help her down the stately stairway in +the morning the tears were coursing freely over her lean and grizzled +cheeks. She talked in a husky whisper all the way down. + +"We've not been in the manner of friends, him being so careful and all +of ye, but oh, Miss Felice, it's proud I am that I watched you in your +bit of a yard and it's sorry I am that you're going--and it's long the +days will be till you come back--and if there's anything that Zeb or I +could do for you--" + +They were in the hallway now, the Major was waiting and some strange +men were carrying the last of the baggage outside to the carriage. +Suddenly Felice put her two arms around Marthy's neck and whispered, +whispered very softly and lifted her face away blushing, + +"You can tell Dudley Hamilt I've gone to the House in the Woods--when +he comes to ask you--" she said. + +The Major was very impressive in his travelling coat, so stern and +solemn that Felicia hardly dared to look at him until after they were +on the steamer. He was really very gentle with her, he tried his best +to make her comfortable, he did not refer at all to the events of the +night before as he wrapped a steamer rug about her and helped the +whining-voiced stewardess to prop a pillow under the bandaged ankle. + +It was a desolate day, gray and overcast. The shore-line was blurred +out before Felicia had so much as a fair look at it. The wind blew, +raw and cold, but she shook her head when they suggested she let them +take her into the cabin. She just lay with closed eyes and cuddled a +little black velvet cap, a boy's cap, under her chin and with every +chug of the engines her heart echoed, + +"This is too far for Dudley Hamilt to come--he will nevaire find me--" +She scarcely spoke to the Major. Poor Major! He walked the deck, his +thin cane, tap, tap, tapping and his great caped coat bundled tight +around him. + +The morning of the second day they changed to an even smaller and +dingier steamer. That was the day that the spring rain fell heavier +and heavier. Felice lay bundled in blankets in the narrow stateroom +and cried softly. There wasn't even a stewardess on this steamer to +comfort her. Sometimes the Major stopped outside and asked her quietly +what she would like. There was nothing she liked, but in the mid- +afternoon she pulled herself together and let the Major wrap her coat +about her and leaned on his arm to limp out of her stateroom and down +the wobbling gang-plank and across a dirty, water-soaked wharf to the +platform where the local train awaited. And after that she sat another +dreary hour, while the ancient engine complainingly coughed its way +through the bleak, gray woods to the ugly brown station that was their +destination. + +It was late afternoon. The rain had not really ceased to fall, but the +sky was clearing a bit in the west as the girl stared curiously about +her, while the baggage man helped the trainmen with their luggage. +Suddenly the girl cried out with joy, + +"Look, there is Maman's cart--" + +For around the corner of the station space crept an ox-cart driven by +a half grown boy. But in the hollow of the plains, just before he had +reached that dreary town, the boy had stopped his cart and gathered +sprawling boughs of wild cherry blossoms, those first harbingers of +spring in that bleak northern country, and fastened them to the wooden +yoke that held the oxen to the wagon and tied the lovely things sweet +with rain, to the poles at the rear and made a sort of fairy chariot +for the little lady who was coming to dwell in the woods. + +He smiled at her under his slouchy cap as he stumbled stiffly toward +the Major. + +"The horse," he stammered, "--her foot got sore las' thing--this were +all we had to fetch ye in--Piqueur--he's too old fur drivin' to the +village any more, so Margot--she sends me--" + +There were chairs in the back of the ox cart, odd chairs built of bent +hickory with buffalo robes tucked in them. The boy swung Felice into +one of them easily. He tucked the soft fur about her vigorously. + +"Better wrop up good," he warned her solemnly, "S'cold." He was +perfectly good-humored at the Major's sharp reprimand at the way he +handled the luggage. The Major clambered in, the oxen started slowly. +As soon as they had passed through the ugly village they turned out of +the woods into a narrow road through sandy plains, an interminable +road it seemed to Felice. Last year's sere leaves rattled on the scrub +oaks; the wind-blown juniper bushes made dark spots against the wet +brown of the sand and the cart swayed lumberingly through the heavy +road. The girl was cold and tired and hungry but she held her head +high and gazed straight before her into the fast falling twilight. + +Up hill, the narrow winding road across that almost endless plain led. +Sometimes the boy let the oxen stop to rest and the rising steam from +their wet flanks told how hard even those sturdy beasts found the +climb. Just as she was thinking that she could endure it no longer, +Felice glimpsed a faint light on a plateau-like place above them. The +boy gestured with his whip. + +"Thar, Major," he called back cheerfully over his shoulder, "We're a- +gittin' thar--" + +They were through the plains at last, ascending a sharp, rocky road +for the last quarter of a mile which grew still narrower but was lined +with enormous bare trees that creaked and moaned in the evening wind. +Felice was really very frightened. + +"Now that's luck," cried the boy cheerily, looking back at her. He was +pointing with his crude whip. It was quite dark now save for a faint +light below the horizon of the sand dunes, but over her shoulder as +she looked where he gestured Felice saw the thin crescent of the new +moon. + +When she looked ahead again she could glimpse the dark outlines of the +great stone house. It looked cold and formidable. It was set far back +from the rising road, a long way back from the massive gate posts +beside the tiny gate house where flickering lights burned on the sills +of three little mullioned windows. They drove through the gates, +across the flagstone-paved drive of the stable yard and came to a slow +stop under the inky shadows of the wooden gallery that was built +across the front of the house. A woman was hurrying down the sagging +steps, such a fat, comfortable woman that Felice unconsciously leaned +toward her even before she could see the alert black eyes and the wide +smiling mouth. She held a lantern high above her gray curly head. It +shone upon the figure of a bent old man, who stood, his cap in his +hands, at the foot of the steps. He was weeping. His voice was throaty +with suppressed sobs and Felice couldn't understand at all what he +said because he cried out in French when he saw the Major. But she +could understand the welcome cheer of the fat woman's greeting as she +called, + +"It's all ready--supper and all--just as though it were twenty years +ago, Monsieur! Ah--" sympathy rang in her voice as the Major helped +Felice descend, "I did not know--she is--lame--" Her lantern was on +the ground now, her sturdy arm had encircled the slender figure in the +coat, "Margot will help--so--" + +And that was the way that Felice went into the House in the Woods. +That was the way she entered the broad and draughty hall, with the +formidably big rooms on either side dimly lighted by the queer candle +lamps and the faint glow from the fires on the chilly marble hearths. + +A table was set before the fire in the dining salon. It looked +dismayingly long, with its deep lace cover and the branched +candelabra. The very height of the carved chairs that were placed at +either end seemed appalling. + +But when Felice was seated in one of them, with her coat still huddled +about her, she looked around with artless curiosity, and watched as in +a dream, while the Major put his hand on Margot's sturdy shoulder. + +"You've kept it well--" was all he said. But when he had dropped his +hand Margot was wiping her eyes on her apron. + +Piqueur served supper, his old hands trembling as he placed the dishes +before them. A hot thin soup, that warmed Felice and made her send a +wavering smile across the table, a platter of ham boiled in apple +cider whose delicious odors made her sniff hungrily, and after he had +served the meat the old man put thin glasses beside their plates and +brought a bottle of wine, wrapped carefully in an old napkin, and +stood behind his master's place. + +And the Major, standing after he had filled Felice's glass, lifted his +own high: + +"Felicia," he said slowly, "We will drink to your home coming--" + +It was all so, strange that she did not notice until Piqueur set a +dish of custard before her that all the silver with which she was +eating was marked with the same odd mark that had adorned her silver +drinking mug back in the nursery in Brooklyn. She stared at it as she +held a thin spoon aloft. + +"Look, Grandy," she cried, "it has my honey bee!" + +He nodded. + +He scarcely seemed to heed her, already he had risen and was pacing +restlessly about the room, peering out the windows, addressing +staccato questions in French to Piqueur. He pulled the shabby silken +rope at the doorway and a bell trilled somewhere faintly. Margot came +running. + +"It is good to hear" she said as she entered. And helping Felice up +the circular stairway she murmured tenderly, "You cannot know, Miss +Felicia, how glad we are, my uncle Piqueur and I, that the house is +opened once more--you're not so tall as your mother, are you?" She was +positively chattering now. Felice caught her arm more closely. + +"Oh, where is Maman?" she demanded. Margot shook her head. She sighed. +She was opening the door of the upper room. She did not answer for a +full moment. Her lips worked nervously before she spoke. + +"She is not here. But this is the bed where she always slept when she +was young--the bed at which she laughed so much--ah, Miss Felicia, +don't you think you will like it? See how droll--" her brown wrinkled +hand rested on a beautifully carved corner post, "These are little +monkeys climbing for fruit--when she was a baby Mademoiselle Octavia +used to put her hands on them so--" + +Felice smiled. + +"I know. She used to tell me," she confided. "She told me that +Poquelin, the father of Moliere, made it." She was wan with fatigue, +poor child, even after she lay, warm and cozy, in the great bed that +had been her mother's. And the last thing she saw as she closed her +eyes in the wavering candle light was Margot's fat and comfortable +figure, trudging toward the fireplace to spread out her coat to dry-- + +It had been a fearful week for Margot, this week since the Major's +curt message to make the house ready had come. For all that she was +forty-five and sturdy and skilful at the myriad tasks that her uncle +Piqueur's rheumatism and age had gradually let fall upon her shoulders +during the slow passing years, this had been a job that put her on her +mettle. Eighteen years of dust and disorder had Margot somehow or +other weeded out of that building. But even with the pale spring +sunshine and wind to help her and even with the huge fires they had +kept kindled all day in the broad fireplaces, the corridors were still +damp and cold and musty. And she was weak with fatigue and excitement. +She sat down beside the fireplace, her tired body relaxing as she +stared through the gloom at the figure in the canopied bed. + +"She is not so beautiful as Octavia--" she thought, "but she is very +sweet--and her eyes--they have that same longing to be happy--" she +sighed as she tiptoed clumsily out of the room and down the draughty +stairway. She stood respectfully beside the Major's chair. "Monsieur," +she said gravely, "does Miss Felicia know anything at all about all +of us?" + +He looked up at her quickly, his dark eyes sparkling with anger at her +audacity, but something in her sober, respectful gaze quieted him. + +"I do not desire that she shall--" he answered. "It is better not to +have her--but--" his voice faltered. "I regret that she does not +understand that her mother--that Miss Octavia--" his thin old hand +tightened its grip on the frail arm of the chair, "I do not know," he +ended miserably, "just how it came about that she is expecting to find +Miss Octavia here--in the garden. Perhaps you can tell her something +to comfort her--perhaps--" + +Gray-haired, wrinkled, her skin brown from exposure, Margot leaned +forward, her eyes shining with excitement. + +"Sometimes I think," she said distinctly, "that Miss Octavia _is_ in the +garden, Monsieur--" She laughed softly at his start. "Do not think I am +out of my wits--" She tapped her head significantly. "I do not mean like +a ghost--I do not see her. Only there is something, most of all in the +springtime--that makes me happy. Perhaps Octavia's daughter will feel +it. Perhaps that thing, whatever it is, will make it easier for me--" +she wiped her eyes, "to answer all things she will ask me--" + +Upstairs in the four-poster bed that Poquelin had carved, Felicia +slept, she smiled as she stirred in her slumbers. She was very tired. +"Maman," she muttered drowsily as the Major paused outside her door on +his way to his room, "In the garden--" and the Major listened and +sighed. + +She awoke to the diddling drone of Piqueur's quavering voice. In the +clear sweetness of the May morning above the twittering of the birds +it raised itself, the quaint measures delighting her ears. Even in +Piqueur's thin falsetto the old melody sang itself--tender, graceful, +spirited, never lagging--he was dropping pea seeds into the trench +that Margot had prepared in the kitchen dooryard, he was always +content when he was planting. + +Felicia limped to the window across the moth-eaten carpet with its +faded doves and roses. She flung the casement out and listened +eagerly. + +"Piqueur," she cried entreatingly "tell me just what it says--that +song you sing." But it was Margot who leaned on her hoe and looked up +at the girl and laughed. + +"He sings of a girl--of more than one girl--who takes care of sheep-- +the song tells them to hurry up--that time drips through the fingers +like water--" Margot's own throaty voice joined lustily into her +uncle's refrain, but a second later she was translating once more. +"You must find your fun in the spring forests--when you're young--" + +The girl in the window above them clapped her hands. A slender black- +haired, eager-eyed dryad, whose shabby brocaded dressing gown trailed +around her bandaged foot-- + +"Oh, wait! wait!" she cried, "Wait until I can do it--" her lips +pursed themselves delicately and a second later the lilting trill of +her lovely whistle took up the refrain of Maitre Guedron's song. + +She stretched out her young hands toward the woods. The tardy tree +tops were budding at last, their lovely bronze and red and tender +green shining in the morning light. + +"'In the spring forests,'" she cried, "'you must find your fun'--are +those the words of the song, Margot?--Oh, look, look!" she pointed +joyously to a blackbird on top the swaying maple outside her window. +He whistled--she whistled, saucily back. + +"Oh!" sighed Margot. "It is good to be young. It is good--go back to +your bed, little one, I'll bring your breakfast." + +But Felicia couldn't go back to bed. She hobbled delightedly from +window to window, staring out at the open space in front of the house, +with its descending terraces and the gray jungle of underbrush that +hid the edge of the clearing. She turned eagerly when Margot entered +with a tray. She was bubbling with joy. + +"Is Maman comfortable this morning?" she was chattering. "Will she be +in the garden? Where is the garden? I've looked and I can't see it--or +is she in her bed yet? And is it up-stairs?" + +Margot's hands trembled. She put the tray down on the bedside table +and pulled the girl across the room and coaxed her into the bed, +rubbing the small bandaged foot, cuddling the quilts about her, as she +tucked the pillows. "So many questions!" she evaded. "Eat your +breakfast and I will help you dress--" + + +Felicia snuggled under the covers and nibbled her toast hungrily. + +"Yesterday," she confided, "I was unhappy; it seemed too far to come-- +I was afraid, from something Marthy said, that I wasn't going to find +Maman--she said I mustn't set my heart on it--" + +Margot sighed. She came close to the bed and took Felicia's hands in +hers. + +"Listen carefully," she entreated, "the thing I have to tell you is +hard. You see when Octavia went away from you she did not come here, +she--" + +"Where did she go?" demanded Felicia sitting bolt upright. + +"She went--" Margot's throaty voice dragged painfully, "She went where +all good women go when their work is done--" + +"Her work wasn't done," objected Felice. "She said it would be a great +deal of work to build the garden over, she said she was afraid it +would be all weeds--Piqueur was so old--she said--Oh! why are you +weeping, Margot?" + +"When she went away from me first," moaned Margot, "I thought I could +never stand it--it was so still and so lonely here in the woods +without her--and now, after all these years that I have learned to +live without her--it is as if she had gone away again to have to try-- +to tell you--" she knelt at the bedside, her lips moved piteously. +"Try to understand, little one, she is gone--neither you nor I can +find her--" + +"Nor the Major?" asked Felicia incredulously. + +"The Major least of all," said Margot firmly. "She is not--" + +"Not what?" demanded Felicia.. + +She was sitting on the edge of the bed now looking very little in the +ancient dressing gown. + +"She is not living any more," sighed Margot. + +There was a long pause, a pause in which the drone of Piqueur's voice, +still singing Maitre Guedron's old song, floated through the open +casement. + +"Not living?" questioned Felicia, her eyes widening with frightened-- +comprehension--"Oh! Oh!" her voice rose tempestuously, angrily, "You +shall not say such dreadful things! They are not true! The Major said +we should come to this house in the Woods, he said--" she paused, her +mind groped back over the years. + +The rising tide of her anger swept her fear that this strange woman +was telling the truth farther and farther out of her thoughts. She +rose, absurdly majestic as she steadied herself with one slender arm +against the quaint carved post of the bed. She pointed toward the +doorway. + +"You'd better go away, Margot," she ordered clearly, "You can't stay +here and talk so to me--" the childish simplicity of her phrases was +absurdly inadequate to express her scorn, "You do not know that I have +a vairee bad temper--I make myself proud, proud, proud when I lose it +--but it will make you vairee unhappy if I do--I say and I do most +dreadful things when I'm angry--If I call for the Major he will come +and send you away--for always and forevaire--as he did Mademoiselle +D'Ormy--and no matter how sorry I am afterward he will not let you +stay--" + +Indeed, this idea of appealing to her grandfather had come the instant +before when she heard his voice outside interrupting Piqueur's song. +She limped swiftly across the space toward the window, she leaned far +out and called to her grandfather, who stood in the courtyard below, +gravely inspecting the lame mare that the boy had brought from the +stable. So intent was Felicia with her question that she forgot her +recent fear of the Major. + +"Grandy!" she called, her clear tones ringing down to him, "Grandy, +you will have to come and send this Margot away--you will--" + +He came up the stairs to her slowly, pausing formally outside her door +to tap for Margot to open for him; but even before he was in the room, +looking very pale and stern and old with his beautiful head lifted +high above the ruffled shirt and his peaked hat held in his hand, the +girl's eager appeal had begun. + +"This Margot," Felicia's words tumbled impetuously, "She's been +telling me lies--she says Maman isn't here--that she isn't in the +garden--or in the house--she says she--" + +"You'd better stay, Margot," said Major Trenton, "I think Miss Felicia +will need you. Felicia, let Margot wrap that gown about you, it's +chilly here. Felicia, we do not know how to make you understand about +your mother--we did not want to make you sad when you were little so I +did not tell you. It was her wish that I should not distress you--" +his face worked pitifully, "--with the manner of her going--what she +said to you about the garden--you did not understand, my dear--She had +a notion, my little Octavia, that we do not die--that only our bodies +die--many other people believe this--are you listening, Felicia? She +thought that her spirit," he groped for words, "the Something she +called the 'Happy part of her' couldn't--'stop'--as she called it--she +said-" his lips were quivering, "that part of her would always try to +stay in the house where you lived so long and in this garden and house +in which she lived when she was young--like you--that is all--What +Margot tells you is quite true--she is not living--she has not been +living since you were eleven--she died--" his words trailed miserably, +"She is not living--" he repeated feebly. + +The girl's eyes had never left his since he had begun his inadequate +explanation, she did not cry out, she merely stood there, pale, +unbelieving and stared at him. + +"And she said the Happy Part of her would be here?" + +He nodded. + +"Then," said Felicia calmly, "If she said so, she will, and you and +Margot are both stupid and bad to tell me that she won't--If you will +find my shoes--" she turned petulantly to Margot, "I will walk until I +find her--" + +"But you cannot find her, she is gone--" the deep agony of his voice +rang in the great room, "Quite gone--" + +"Where has she gone?" demanded Felice stubbornly. + +He gestured his despair. + +It was Margot who came to the rescue, sane Margot, who had collected +her senses once more. She pattered across the room to the wardrobe, +calling over her shoulder as she tugged at the door. + +"Wait, wait," she entreated, "You will understand some day! Just now +we won't talk about it any more. She's not here but she has left so +many things for you! So many messages for you! So much for you to do! +Look, Miss Felicia!" She held aloft a broad sun-hat and a pair of +gauntleted gloves, "Just where she hung them--as if she knew you might +want them! These are the things she wore when she worked in the +garden--here's her wicker basket with the trowel and the hand fork-- +and here's the garden book--" She was standing before Felicia now +holding out the treasures. "If you'll sit over there by the window I +can tell you about the day she found this book--" + +The hurt look was fading from the girl's eyes; she reached out her +hands for these things that had been her mother's; she was quite +docile as the Major helped her to the chair by the window. She had the +garden book cuddled under her arm; she was holding the gloves against +her cheek; she looked like a child instead of a grown-up person. + +You won't have to pretend you can see Felicia's great-great- +grandmother's garden book--you can really see it in the library of +Octavia House if you care to ask the Poetry Girl to show it to you-- +but perhaps you'll like to pretend that you can see the seventeen year +old Felicia, wrapped in that shabby brocaded dressing gown sitting +beside the window staring at the stained title page, trying to read +the faint inked inscription. Perhaps you'll like to pretend too, that +you can hear her grandfather's voice steadying itself as he leans over +the back of the chair and translates the inscription for her. The +book's in English, you know, but that written inscription is in +French. + +"It says," read her grandfather, "something like this: + + "'To my little Madame Folly + Whom others call Prudence Langhorne + I present this book, for I have heard + A woman can be very happy building a garden--'" + +"And whose name is this?" Felicia put her finger on the broad sprawl +after the inscription. + +"It's the initial of the man who gave it to her--J.--" said her +grandfather grimly. + +"And J. gave this book to Maman?" + +Margot chuckled. + +"No--no--" she explained. "Your Maman found this book over there in +the cupboard--it's a very old book, Cherie. It is a book that a man +gave to--" her fat fingers checked off the generations lightly, "a +lady named Prudence--she was the mother of Josepha--and Josepha was +the mother of a Louisa. It was this Louisa who was your mother's +mother--now do you see? And think, Miss Felicia--" she waved her hand +toward the opened door of the wardrobe, "what many, many things +they've left here for you! When Octavia was just as old as you she +rummaged and rummaged every day--" Margot wiped her eyes with the back +of her hand--the Major moved toward the window and looked down upon +the garden. "She put them all in order, each one's clothes in a +different place, I was the one who helped her. And she used to laugh +while we sorted the things and say what fun it would be for the next +one who came to see them--that's you, Miss Felicia--" + +"Oh! Oh!" breathed Felicia, her eyes shining like stars. "How sweet of +her! How sweet of you, Margot, to keep them all for me! You are sweet, +sweet, sweet to bring me her gloves! Once she told me about this hat, +I knew its ribbons would be blue! I know how they tie in back so's it +won't make me warm under my chin--she told me--look, isn't this the +way?" Her slender hands lifted the hat to her hair, so sweetly rumpled +from her pillows, "Look, Grandy, look at me! I am wearing Maman's hat +--she told me I could wear it when I came to the House in the Woods! Do +you think it looks well on me?" Her naive vanity almost broke their +hearts. "Do you, Grandy? Look at me!" + +He turned slowly. He stepped bravely toward her and lifted her hand +and kissed it. + +"You look very charming, my dear," he murmured, he was breathing hard, +"very charming--I'll go back to the stable, if you'll excuse me-- +Margot will show you the other things--" he was in the doorway now, +his head held high, "as she told you they've all been kept for you +carefully. I hope they will make you very happy." + +He closed the door softly. + +Things to make her happy! Ah! Margot! Cunning Margot! spreading the +treasures of those dear dead women before their imperious little +descendant! Wise old Margot, who must speak so carefully that she will +not break that girl's heart! Margot, who must undo all the trouble +that years of evasions from Grandy and lies from Mademoiselle D'Ormy +have stored up for her! + +With what infinite tact did she bring them out, those vanities And +trinkets of those girls of bygone days; with what adroit eloquence did +she introduce all their foibles and virtues to Felicia! Oh, but she +was a fine old gossip, was Margot! She couldn't quite trust herself to +touch Octavia's clothes that first day. She plunged wildly into +Louisa's. + +While Felice's hands were busy over a shagreen jewel case filled with +hideous garnet and gilt breast-pins and bracelets of the sixties, +Margot leaned from the casement and called, + +"Bele, oh, Bele! You careless boy! Bring some wood for Miss Felice! +Make a fire up here! It's damp!" + +And while the boy, embarrassed and awkward, was kindling the fire +Margot fled to the kitchen to juggle wildly with her pots and pans and +leave a thousand directions for Piqueur about what to serve for the +Major's lunch. + +"Never tell me a man knows how to bring up a child," she scolded as +she stirred her soup, "never tell me that! He's done as well as he +could but he's made a fine mess of it--the poor child! Thinking Miss +Octavia would be here--not knowing so much as a new-born kitten-- +that's as much sense as she has--as a little new-born kitten!" + +And she hurried back with a delectable luncheon on a tray. + +Outside the sun had hid itself and the fickle spring clouds were +dripping over the desolate garden. But at the fireside, curled up in +the winged chair with her bandaged foot propped comfortably on a foot- +stool, Felicia sat through the long afternoon and chattered and +laughed and clapped her little hands. + +Oh, those foolish clothes that had belonged to Louisa! With their +silly--whaleboned waists and their grotesque basques and impossible +pleatings! Felicia couldn't get one of those bodies half around her +healthy young waist. But she liked the bonnets and the shawls. They +were adorable. The shawls were so soft, so quaintly shaped, the +bonnets were fairly ravishing. Felicia tried them on, peering into a +carved tortoise shell hand mirror, and giggled whimsically at the +little flowered ones with lacy ties and the stuffy winter ones with +velvet bows. + +"Miss Louisa was very handsome," Margot informed her, "My aunt says +she was the handsomest girl she ever saw--but very high-minded, very +uppish!" + +"I know about her," Felice answered easily, "Mademoiselle D'Ormy +belonged to her. Louisa went to Paris, you know, and Mademoiselle +lived there. Mademoiselle used to tell me she bought clothes and +clothes and clothes! Are these those clothes?" + +Margot nodded. + +"Josepha's clothes came from Paris too--" she spread a great brocaded +velvet coat before her, "Josepha wasn't pretty at all like the rest of +them, she looked like her father, they said, and he was a homely old +man--Josepha had a temper--I never saw her--I wasn't even born when +she went away, but my aunt served her and she said Mistress Josepha +had an air--a way with her--if things didn't suit her--" she lowered +her voice impressively--"Ah--what she wouldn't do, that Josepha! Once +my aunt took her an omelette--a beautiful omelette cooked with chopped +fine carrots and peas and parsley and a big tall glass of milk for her +breakfast, but Josepha, she had desired broiled chicken that morning, +so she walked straight to the window here where I'm standing and threw +the omelette out--She would always throw things--that one--her shoes-- +or anything--when she was angry--" + +Felicia blushed. + +"Margot," she confided, "this morning when I was angry I was like +that--I wanted to throw things, only I hadn't anything just then to +throw--but when I was little I did--my bath sponge, you know, and once +a key--" she grew thoughtful, "the key to the storeroom where +Mademoiselle hid things--Margot, you won't hide these things, will +you?" she hugged a wee muff jealously to her breast, "You won't, will +you?" + +Margot chuckled and shrugged her shoulders. The room was filled with +the finery she had dragged from the tall wardrobe. On the chairs, over +the bed, hanging from the pegs of the cupboard, of every conceivable +color and shape, those forgotten clothes glimmered and shone. + +"These are the oldest of all--" Margot was kneeling and tugging at a +carved cedar chest that was under the bed, "These are the things that +belonged to the first one of you, the things that belonged to Prudence +Langhorne." She dragged the chest triumphantly to the girl's side. "On +top,--" the odor of the cedar was wafted out into the room like the +odor of the pine plains through which Felice had been driving +yesterday, "here, these are things she had when she came to live in +this house that was built for her--plain enough, eh?" She spread the +gray stuffs and brown linsey woolseys out scornfully. Their voluminous +skirts and long tight sleeves and queer flat yellowed collars were +stupid enough in the midst of all the splendor about them. "But look, +now look, what she wore after she came--" + +Felicia looked. And not even all the frills and fabrics that she had +already exclaimed over could compare with the loveliness of these +frocks of Mistress Prudence. They were so dainty, so fragile I With +their delicate yellowed laces! They were so soft and faded with age! +Each little frock was packed by itself in a yellowed linen case, each +had shoes and stockings and sometimes a gay little head dress folded +away with it. Short-waisted, scant skirted-- + +"Oh! Oh!" cried Felice, "these are the ones I love best of all! These +are the ones I'll wear! Oh Margot! That darling rosy one!" She bobbed +out of the chair excitably, "Look at the little silver shoes for it! +Oh Margot, dress me in it at once! Oh, Margot! How pretty I'll be for +dinner every day--" + +You should have seen her when she limped down the stairs for supper! +Margot had brought her one of the Major's canes and tied some faded +cherry ribbons on its gold handle. Piqueur was just lighting the +candles when the two descended. Grandfather sat by the fire, his head +drooping. It had been a hard day, this day he had spent with old +memories. He had grieved over Octavia, he had yearned for Louisa, he +had pondered mightily concerning Josepha who had been so angry with +him when he had married her daughter. But he'd thought not at all of +little Madame Folly in whose house he sat and brooded, not until he +looked up and saw her great-great-granddaughter standing in the +doorway, dressed in a cherry-colored gown, all gay with tarnished +silver ribbons and yellowed lace. Because she didn't know any other +way to dress her hair, she had tucked it in its usual knot at the nape +of her lovely neck, but on top the neat parting was perched a narrow +gold circlet with a tiny cherry-colored plume and she held her head +audaciously high as she swept him a mighty curtsy. + +"Louisa's things aren't pretty at all," she babbled breathlessly, "and +Josepha's I can't wear--but oh, Grandy, aren't Prudence's just sweet!" + +"They look like Imprudence's," he bantered as he rose. + +She brought forth other treasures from under her curved arm. + +"And look! Little chess men and a little chess board. Get a table! +I'll checkmate you before even dinner is ready! Margot has to go brown +the chickens--hurry Margot, I'm hungry--" + +She had come into her own. She was like a young queen come to her +throne. From that very moment she ruled them all,--Grandy, Margot, +Piqueur and Bele as though they were her slaves. + +She adored every inch of her domain, she could scarcely wait for the +ankle to heal so that she could rove about the overgrown paths in the +woods and tumbled walks and weed-covered lawns. She could not get up +early enough in the morning to do all her eager young heart longed to +do. Rebuilding the garden was a sacred trust; hadn't Maman told her to +do it? All day long, her serious face shaded by the old garden hat, +her slender hands encased in the gauntleted gloves, she prowled about +the terraces or rummaged in the tool house, usually with the beloved +THEORY AND PRACTISE OF GARDENING under her arm. Sometimes she spread +it open on a dilapidated bench so that she could read its solemn +dissertations. The very title page appalled one with the gravity of +the task. In flourishing type it boasted of its august contents-- + + Wherein Is fully handled + all that relates to the fine gardens + commonly called pleasure gardens + as Parterres, Groves, Bowling Greens. + Containing + Divers plans and general dispositions. + Methods of planting, and raising in little time, + all the plants requisite in a garden. + + Done from the French original in Paris + anno domini 1709 + +Daytime was not long enough for its perusal. Night after night, she +sat hunched up in the Poquelin bed and pored over her beloved book. +Sometimes after she read she would run and peer out from her casement +window in the moonlight and scowl over the wilderness that lay below +her, the wilderness that had once been a garden. The cleared space +that stretched for two or three hundred yards before the house was +divided into three flat terraces whose crumbling banks had lost their +once careful outlines; and at the bottom of the lowest terrace a +tottering lattice, sagging with old vines, made a background for the +fountain in whose rubbish-filled depths a chubby cupid struggled +patiently with an impossible marble duck. + +"If I could only see how it went--" she would fret, "I can't see which +one of them it is." + +For in the back of the Garden book were many folded charts and maps, +so big that they stretched out enormously over the counterpane of the +bed. Sometimes Felicia thought that Mistress Prudence' garden must +have been built after "The Sixteenth Practise"--that was a brave plan +"with three terraces and a fountain at the base," but sometimes she +thought it must be after the "single star cut into cabinets." + +At first she contented herself with gardening in the Bowling Green +with Piqueur feebly turning over the weedy sod and Bele tramping to +and fro with barrows of manure. Her Bowling Green was in the very +center of the second terrace. She had discovered that directly she +began. + +"In France," she read, "a bowling green differs from what you call a +bowling green in England. We mean no other by this word than certain +hollow sinking and slopes of turf which are practised in the middle of +a parterre. A Bowling Green is the most agreeable compartment of a +garden, when rightly placed most pleasant to the eye beside the +pleasure it affords us of lying on its sloping banks in the shade +during hottest weather." + +Only it wasn't so easy to read as it looks now we're writing it over. +For "The Theory and Practise of Gardening" made you rub your eyes and +groan, it was such a puzzling sort of book. To begin with its type was +bewildering with its s's all turned like f's and its italics so thin +you could scarcely decipher them. Besides that, the author, who +remained discreetly anonymous, but none the less unwarrantably +conceited, had a maddening way of spreading over a whole page the way +not to do things--he didn't state at the start that it was the wrong +way he was relating, he just meandered on, letting the reader suppose +that was the rightest way possible as he wrote at length pertaining +to: + +"How to grow Box Trees from seed. + +"The box tree is a green shrub of greatest use and one of the most +necessary in the garden. There are two sorts, the dwarf box which we +French call Buis A' Artous much used for planting the embroidery of +Parterres. It naturally does not grow very much which makes it called +dwarf box. The other kind is the Box Tree of the woods, which advances +much higher and has bigger leaves which make it fit to form Pallisades +and green Tufts for Garnishing. It comes up in the shade but is a long +time gaining any considerable height. It is put to a great many petty +uses, as making balls--as the climate of France is very different from +that of the Indies in the degree heat _it is better to raise from slips +and layers than to try to sow seed which is a great time coming up_." + +The book quite frankly disclosed the terrors as well as the joys of +the game. It was most disconcerting to read of + +"The Distempers and Insects that Attack....The great Enemies are +Rabbets, Garden Mise, Moles, Caterpillars, Maybugs, Ants, Snails, +Turks, Canthardies and an abundance of weeds, the names of which are +unknown to us--" + +She shouted with youthful laughter as she read it, the echoes of her +merriment sounding through the empty halls. She doubled her little +fist and shook it toward the candle, flickering low in its socket. + +"That's what has hidden the garden," she murmured, "that's why I can't +see it--" she wrinkled her nose in disgust. "--Abundance-of-weeds-- +Piqueur and Bele will settle you!" + +All through the verdant spring, all through the quick hot summer the +girl puzzled over the unanswered riddle--the scheme of the garden. +Piqueur and Bele and Margot toiled valiantly pulling up the myriad +abundance-of-weeds, but in vain. It was not until the resplendent +autumn had passed that she had any inkling of the real pattern. There +came a glorious moonlit night, a chilly night when she snuggled under +the blankets and yawned over the chapter that told her "how to mulch +plants for winter." The wind blew so chill that at midnight she +pattered across the old carpet to make the casement fast. The whole +cleared space below her glistened with the fairy glamour of the first +frost. Under the magic silvery whiteness the lost "parterres and +cabinets and lozenges" with their paths and borders stood out as +clearly in the moonlight as the day when Madame Prudence's workmen had +charted them there. She laughed aloud as she ran back and turned to +the map labelled "The twentieth and laft practife which is the most +superb and which is The Bifected Oval." + +"Oh, Oh!" she murmured as she leaned across the stone sill, unmindful +of the cold, to blow a tiny kiss to the fountain cupid, "How stupid I +was not to see! You just live in half the oval and the kitchen garden +and the stables are the other half--" + +She could scarcely wait for morning to impart her wonderful news to +Grandy and the others. + +"Some say it can be done within five years, but ye author believes +from experiences both at Versailles and in ye south of England that a +decade or more is necessary to establish any garden--" + +Which warning from the fat brown leather book made it easier for +Felice, you see, because she never hoped to accomplish the garden in a +little time. Besides, Piqueur was, as Octavia had foretold "too old." +But it was Margot--oh, heaven-sent Margot, and the adoring, clumsy +Bele who toiled like four men, and so cabinet by cabinet, parterre by +parterre, terrace by terrace, the superb old garden began to grow +lovely once more. + +Think of the victory of the summer when the hedges were at last +properly trimmed! Think of the joy of the flatly rolled turf, the +spring that they found a massive iron roller in an unused shed at the +back of the carriage house! Think of the wonder of that day when the +little fountain laughed again, its pipe unchoked and its overflow +trickling neatly away under the hidden terra-cotta drains! + +The busy days lost themselves in weeks, the weeks dripped endlessly +from season to season. By the time the second spring had come it was +as though Felicia had lived in the House in the Woods forever. + +The only links with the old life were the two or three visits of +Certain Legal Matters; and as Felice hated him as much as ever she hid +herself all she could during his short stays. + +It was during his second visit that Felicia had her first real +encounter with the doughty lawyer. It was in March that he came, and +Felicia and Margot were deep in their spring plans. They needed a +great many things that they didn't have for the garden. It was +practical Margot who suggested casually, + +"Why couldn't you ask Mr. Burrel? He could send them to the junction +and I could go with the oxen--I have always asked him for vegetable +seeds when I sent the spring list of supplies--write in a paper, +Cherie, all that we need--put down the roses and the trees and the +lily bulbs and all--tell him that he must send them." + +She was rather cunning about it, was Felice. She waited until the +lawyer was strolling impatiently in the gallery waiting for the cart +to drive around from the stable. She approached him boldly, holding +out her list. + +"These are some things we need for our garden," she said. "You will +please have them sent at once." + +He stared at the imperious young creature. It was the first time she +had ever voluntarily spoken with him. He took the list. He was very +ill at ease. + +"I am not certain," he began as he stared amazed at the lengthy order, +"that I can arrange for--er--" + +Inwardly quaking Felice answered him. Her low voice sounded +astonishingly calm to her. + +"But we must have them," she announced. She played her trump card +valiantly, "You can give it back to me if you can't get them, I have +another person--who can attend to--Certain Legal Matters for me--" Her +voice trailed faintly, she was really rather frightened. + +"May I ask whom?" the lawyer demanded in amazement. + +"I know where he is," she asserted childishly. "He is in Temple Bar, +Brooklyn, and he would get them for me quickly, I'm sure. You see, in +April we shall need these things for the planting. He told me--" she +added this with delicious positiveness, "to remember to let him know +if you did not manage things properly." + +The cart had clattered around now, Piqueur was waiting politely. The +lawyer frankly gaped at her, his eyes narrowed. He looked very pale in +the afternoon light. His thick hand reached out for the list. + +"I--I will see that you get what you wish, Miss Felicia--" he +capitulated. "You do not need to ask any one else about it--I'm glad +to do you the favor--" + +And all the way across the Pine Plains to the station he questioned +Piqueur as to whether the Major or Felice had had any visitors. But +Piqueur, who had always hated the lawyer, cunningly evaded the cross- +examination. And in less than a week after Burrel's departure Margot +drove the ox-cart across the plains and brought it back fairly laden +with florists' crates and boxes. + +Life was not all easy. Keeping the Major happy grew more and more +difficult. If Felicia found the House in the Woods joyous, he did not. +He brooded restlessly save for the hours they spent together over the +chess board or at dinner; sometimes he slowly paced the long gallery +or the hallways, but more often he sat gloomily, his hand on his cane, +his chin resting on his hand and looked sadly across the terrace where +Felice directed her workers. He, like Piqueur, was growing "too old." +He was really seventy-four that summer. Margot knew when his birthday +came and tried to make a little feast but he ignored it. He tried to +pretend a polite interest in the reconstruction of the garden but his +heart was not in it. He liked better to sit indoors in his carved +chair. Even on the warmest days when evening came he wanted a fire +kindled on the chilly marble hearth. + +Felicia labored patiently at "making him happy." She had long since +made him a partner in her own game that she called pretending. +"Pretending" just as in the old days when she had played with Maman. +Of course, she had to whistle to pretend and he still affected a scorn +of the whistling he had once forbidden. The "pretending" usually took +place directly after dinner. She would kiss the top of his forehead +audaciously and dance before him with a deep curtsy. + +"Let's pretend, Grandy! Let's pretend I'm not Felice! Let's pretend +I'm a blanchisseuse--that's a washerlady. This is a thing that +Piqueur's mother learned in France when she was young--whenever Margot +and I spread our linen on the grass to bleach we whistle this--" + +Or sometimes she would demurely assure him that she was, "--a girl +who's pulling roses to sell the man who makes perfume--" She would +snatch up her needlework basket and swing it at her hip and pull the +roses down from the mantelpiece vases and all the while she would +whistle, with her dear little chin perkily lifted and her sparkling +eyes watching to see if the Major was listening. + +The song he liked best of all was the song of the hunt. I think he +liked the audacity with which she appropriated his peaked hat and +perched it jauntily on her own head and caught away his cane to use +for a riding crop. "This song," she would explain joyously, "is for +autumn, when all the men and women are waiting on their restless +horses for the master of the hunt to blow his horn--" Her cupped hands +at her lips made a beautiful horn and her whistle rang valiantly in +the great ceilinged room but the hunting song usually lost itself in a +whirr of laughter and frills as the huntress dropped breathless on the +footstool at the Major's side and put her sleek head against his knee. + +"Grandy," she whispered once, "You stub-stub-stubborn man! Why don't +you learn to pretend! Why don't you make believe they're all here?" +she waved her hand toward the portraits around them! "I pretend +they're proud, proud, proud I'm here! It must have been vairee stupid +for them before I came!" + +The Major was not her only audience. She frequently "pretended" for +Margot and Piqueur and Bele, prancing gaily-about them in their snug +kitchen on the long winter evenings when they huddled by their fire. +For them she whistled all the droll bits of Marthy's songs that she +remembered. Piqueur only listened solemnly, with his smothered briar +pipe held politely in his hand; but Margot, buxom, and red cheeked +with her iron gray hair tucked under her flaring cap would sit and +gape and laugh and quite forget her knitting whenever she could hear, + +"He who would woo a widow must not dally He must make hay while the +sun doth shine He must not say 'Widow, be mine--be mine!--'" + +Felicia's absurd whine for the timorous lover always made Bele snort +from his corner, + +"But boldly cry 'Widow, thou MUST--'" + +Ah, the deep contralto of that boyish voice of hers roundly mouthing +the pompous swain's wooing! + +She could always make Margot cry when she "pretended" _The Wreck of the +Polly Ann_--with her gray eyes wide with excitement as she described the +rolling waves from the top of the rigging! I don't suppose she ever knew +all of the words of any of these songs or ballads, she never did any of +them quite the same any time, but she caught at the plot and she babbled +a scrap or two of the chorus and she always knew every lilting turn of +the tunes. + +There was one "pretend" she could only do when she was alone. She did +not try it often. Sometimes on the spring nights when the tender +breezes let the half-awakened wistaria flutter outside her window, she +would blow out all her candles and lean far across the sill and stare +at her unfinished garden. + +And when the house was still, oh, heart-breakingly still, she would +kneel beside the bed and whisper, + +"Let's pretend! Let's pretend we're back in your room, Maman! Let's +pretend it's THAT NIGHT! Let's pretend they've just brought me in from +the garden! And that you're laughing a little because you've heard him +say, + +"'Second cap I've lost here! Lost one when I was a little shaver! +There was a girl--why, girl--!' + +"Oh Maman! Maman! If you'd only been there! You wouldn't have brought +me away!" + +She kept the choir boy's black velvet cap in the lowest drawer of the +wardrobe. Once Margot saw it when she was tidying things. + +"I don't remember this--" she murmured curiously. + +And Felicia had snatched it away jealously and cuddled it under her +chin. + +"Because that's mine!" she had retorted passionately, "It's mine! +Mine! And it didn't belong evaire to any other woman only me!" + +And the years slipped away like Time in Maitre Guedron's song and +every year the garden grew a little lovelier and every year Felicia +grew a little more sedate and every year Piqueur and the Major grew +"too old." Until Piqueur no longer left his fireside and as for the +Major--well, there came a day when the Major fell prostrate by the +staircase and lay for a long time breathing very hard. That was a +terrifying time until Bele brought a doctor from the village. He was a +good little doctor, round faced and pink cheeked, quite the youngest +thing, save Bele, that Felicia had seen in many years. And he pulled +the Major back to something like life--a something that played chess +very slowly and sometimes called Felicia Octavia and sometimes +querulously murmured, + +"Louisa, I forbid you to go to Paris--it's a bad business--" + +She "pretended" nothing in these days, simply went gravely about the +myriad tasks that awaited her, directing the stupid Bele, helping the +white haired Margot, sitting proudly at the head of the table smiling +across at a black eyed old gentleman who muttered and fumbled +peevishly at his food or quite forgot to eat at all until she coaxed +him. She always smiled at dinner; one should smile at dinner even +though one feels very, very sad. And after dinner one must make an +attempt to give a querulous old man his game of chess. And let his +cold lips caress one's hand when Bele comes to put him to bed. + +But after that, especially if it was spring, she would wander +restlessly in her garden or pace back and forth in her high ceilinged +bed chamber. And sometimes she would kneel beside her window and +murmur a little prayer--she didn't know it was a prayer, it was just a +scrap of something she remembered-- + +"'I can't get out--I can't get out!' cried the starling," which isn't +in any prayer book of course, save the prayer book of a woman's +imprisoned heart. + +She was in the kitchen garden one morning just beside the gatehouse +showing Bele for the thousandth time how to trench the peas without +burying them, when a crumpled old man in a rough cap with a basket +under his arm, limped through the gate. + +"I want to see Major Trenton--" he said firmly. + +Felicia turned. No one ever came to see the Major any more. Not even +Certain Legal Matters since the time of the Major's fall. Felicia had +signed many papers at his last visit some three years before and since +then no one had bothered the Major. + +"You'll have to see me," answered Felicia, coolly, "Bele, not--so-- +deep! You're smothering them--what is your business?" + +The man took off his cap, he put down his basket and knelt to open it +and out popped the littlest, drollest fluff of a spaniel that ever +frisked. + +"Oh, oh!" cried Felicia softly and dropped to her knees. "Oh, oh, it's +a little Babiche! Oh Zeb! Zeb! To think I didn't see who you were--" + +And they walked across the paved door-yard with the tears in their +eyes and Felicia took him in to Margot and brought him soup and fed +the wee doggie and fluttered about like a wild young thing instead of +a sedate person of twenty-seven. + +"I want to ask you a thousand million things! I want to ask Marthy a +thousand million things--" + +Zeb closed his eyes and shook his head. + +Felicia patted his shoulder. + +"Has she gone away, like Maman?" she asked softly. "I know how hard it +is when folks go away, Zeb." + +"But that's not the matter o' my comin'--" Zeb pushed his bowl away +and stood respectfully, "That matter o' my comin' was as I must see +the Major. On your going away, Miss Felicia, he promised me rent free +for my lifetime and he gave me all the breedin' stock they was and +left me the business for what I could make, so's to speak. Which isn't +what it were, with new-fangled big dogs getting in style now. And with +Marthy gone and all. But now with Mr. Burrel skipped out like he did, +things is awful--just awful--and It seemed like I'd got to tell the +Major--" + +Margot pulled out a chair for Felicia. + +"Sit down, Cherie," she murmured, "Margot will get it out--have you +seen Mr. Burrel?" she questioned eagerly, "We've no sign of him this +long time--" + +"He's skipped out--" repeated Zeb dully, "Things is awful--Come last +Thursday they pasted 'Auction, April 10 for Unpaid Taxes' over +everything. So's when I was packing my things I come on some writing +Miss Octavia left Marthy. As to how to get here, and I come." + +He was weary and spent with his journey; he was stupider than ever, +poor old Zeb. Not even the round faced doctor, whom Margot and Felicia +called for advice, could learn anything more from his disconnected +story, save that there were "heathen, dirty filthy heathen" living in +the old house. + +Felicia cuddled the new Babiche thoughtfully. + +"Do you think," she asked, "that the Major would miss me, Doctor, if I +went away a little while to find out about these things?" + +The doctor shook his head. + +"He wouldn't," he answered, "But, Miss Day, you couldn't go!" + +She smiled. + +"Couldn't I just!" she breathed. She was quite calm about the details. +Her perfect poise awed both Margot and the doctor into thinking her +quite capable. "Zeb could stay here with Margot, the doctor could take +me to the station, Zeb says he didn't come on a boat, just a train. +And you know, Margot, when I get to Brooklyn, I'll go right to Temple +Bar. There was a man, as I told you, another lawyer. When I was young +he told me to go to him if anything happened. Maman had him come. He +will know what to do." + +Nothing they could say would dissuade her. The touch of imperiousness +with which she silenced their objections made the blundering well- +meaning doctor want to shake her. He waited impatiently while Margot +made Felicia ready for the hasty journey. He saw nothing absurd about +the slender figure that came down the stairway toward him wrapped in +the very same traveling coat in which she had first journeyed to the +House in the Woods. She was wearing one of Louisa's ugliest bonnets +with the strings tied primly under her chin and she was fearfully +pale. + +The Major was sitting by his fire, dozing gently. He did not notice +her at all. He roused himself for the doctor's perfunctorily cheerful +farewell. It was then that he noted Felicia's coat and bonnet. + +"What are you pretending?" he asked. + +"I'm pretending I'm going on a journey," she answered cheerfully. +"Don't you think I look like going on a journey, Grandy?" + +"I think you look very charming, my dear," he murmured automatically, +his thin hand on the top of his cane. He shivered slightly. "But I +forbid you to go to Paris--bad business--it's a bad business, Louisa!" + +At the gateway, just as the doctor was clucking briskly to his horse, +Felicia put out her hand and stopped him. Zeb and Margot and Bele +stood respectfully beside the gatehouse, respectfully but very +troubled. + +"It's silly," faltered Felicia, "but I think--I--can't go alone--Zeb, +you bring me my new Babiche, I can carry her under my arm." + +Zeb handed the dog up proudly, patting her professionally. He +scratched his head perplexedly as he stepped back from the wheel. + +"Hey, wait!" he addressed the doctor as he started a second time. He +fumbled in an inner pocket of his rough coat. "I was forgetting, Miss +Felicia, a matter of a letter for you I found in Marthy's things--she +sent it off at you this long time ago but it came back at her--" + +He handed it up, thin, much creased and much bestamped and postmarked. + + Miss F. Day + New York. + Or return to + + M. Z. Smather + 2 Montrose Lane, Brooklyn, N. Y. + +Pretend you were the doctor if you like, the tired country doctor, +mildly sorry for the little old maid granddaughter of your apoplectic +patient--that queer patient who lives in that stone mansion some of +those French refugees built over there across the Pine Plains. That's +an easy enough thing to pretend, but a tiresome enough thing, too, for +then you'll have to make believe you're urging your tired horse over +those heavy roads to the railway station so you can get the old maid +there in time for her train. She's quiet enough, in her seedy bonnet +and shabby coat, a nice sensible body usually, only very self-willed. +You know perfectly well she's going off on a wild goose chase and that +she shouldn't be taking that fool puppy with her. + +_But oh, I hope you're good at pretending!_ For then you can pretend +you're Felicia Day! Felicia Day sitting in a lumbering local train, +quite unmindful of the atrocious rocking roadbed or the blurred spring +forests that whirl past your smoke-glazed window; quite oblivious of all +the terrors and discomforts of journeys past or journeys still to come! + +For then you can pretend that you've just slowly pulled away the +envelope that was so useless because of poor old Marthy's +undecipherable handwriting and that you've kissed the inner wrapping +that reads "Please send this to Miss Trenton (if that's her name). At +once." And then--oh then, you can pretend you are reading the first +letter you ever had in all this world and that it says, + +Dear Felice: + +You see I've found out your first name even if I'm not sure of the +rest. Anyhow I know Major Trenton is your grandfather. He wouldn't let +me see you this morning when I went to your house and this afternoon +you'd gone away. The old woman says you've gone to a house in the +woods. Please, please tell me you'll let me come to see you. Please +tell me where it is. She doesn't seem to know exactly. The doctor says +your foot will be all right but, oh, I can't forgive myself that I let +you fall. I wish I had never, never let go of you at all-- + +Oh, girl, please write in a hurry where you are. I want to tell you so +many things. I want to ask you a lot of things. You can send a letter +to my house, it's 18 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn. I know you know my +name because you called it when you were falling. It was so wonderful +to have you know my name-- + +Oh, Felice, please write me very soon. I can't wait until I get your +letter. + +_Your_ DUDLEY HAMILT. + + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LOST DREAMS + + +Perhaps you remember the fat boy who teased little Felice through the +gate of the rectory yard. He didn't grow up like the rest of the choir +boys, he merely expanded until he was a droll larger edition of his +small tubby self; perhaps you've heard him singing at St. Patrick's +and smiled at the bland and childlike face from which his beautiful +big round baritone pours forth--he surely can sing! And eat! It's +really rather fun to go to the Brevoort with him and watch his +pleasingly plump wife remonstrate while he orders luncheon. + +"Oh Tomothy Tom!" she groaned one showery April day, "those are all +starchy, sweety, fatty things! Don't order another food! Or I'll want +to eat them too, I shouldn't have another ounce, I shouldn't!" + +"Not if you're going to take that jump over the fence in the second +act," said Graemer who was lunching with them. He was her manager, +Edwina Ely was a much better known person than her fat husband. And a +good bit older, too, if you must know it, though of course she did not +look so with her almost too blonde hair coiffed elaborately under the +wicked wings of her impertinent toque and her pleasure-loving chin +nestled in her white furs. + +"I hate for us to eat here, the food's so good," she murmured with the +same plaintive note that makes the audience weep at the end of the +third act of "The Juggler." + +"But I had a very special reason for wanting to come here," Graemer +explained. He had to be a bit wary of the starchy things too, though +he still had a figure in spite of his weight. He was complacently vain +of his prematurely gray hair, his fresh youthful skin and his dark +eyes. He reminded one somehow of a husky widow, he was so feminine in +spite of his size. He looked leisurely enough for a busy man. You +wondered how he had time to manage so many player folk, write so many +plays and yet dawdle over his luncheon as he did. He leaned forward to +ask Edwina's husband something. The fat man laughed uneasily. + +"Well, he does usually lunch here," he admitted, "and I did use to +know him rather well, but I'm not exactly the person to introduce you +if you want anything from him--he's not overly fond of me--" + +"I understood from Edwina that you were boyhood friends." +The fat man smiled and deliberately and delicately chucked his wife +under her rosy little chin. + +"Tattle-tale!" he taunted her. + +"You were!" she persisted, "you know you were!" + +"If you ever were," said Graemer earnestly, "Permit me to suggest that +you renew your youth. What I want him for is partly on Edwina's +account. "The Juggler" isn't going as well as it ought to--I haven't +anything new in sight for her and I'd like to keep this going until I +have. What we need is a press agent like Dudley Hamilt." + +"He's not a press agent--" gasped the fat man. + +"He's the prince of press agents," answered Graemer easily, "he gets +more publicity, favorable publicity, for anything he touches than any +one I've ever watched work. Look what he did for the coal interests-- +and look at that work of his in last fall's campaign--" + +"But that was politics--" protested the fat man. "He wouldn't call +that being a press agent and I doubt if you could interest him in +anything theatrical." + +"I can if I can get at him. Some one's bound to if I don't. It isn't +only for 'The Juggler' that I want him, it's for all my things--what +I'm going to offer him is something big--about the biggest end of the +game--but I don't want to seem to go to him so I thought that if there +was some casual way--if you should ask him to lunch with us--" + +"He probably wouldn't--of course he might--" the baritone ruminated, +"Our fuss was a long time ago." He settled himself comfortably, he +dearly loved to gossip. "He's a queer chap, Dud is. Always was. We +used to sing in the same boy choir when we were kids. Little church +over in Brooklyn. He was an angel terror, regulation boy sopran'. Into +everything. Nearly drove the old choir master to drink. Was always +being expelled. Our families both belonged to the church so Brownly +always took us back after a row blew over. And carried us along while +our voices were changing. When I first began doing baritone Dudley was +singing all the tenor solos, had a peach of a voice, but he never did +anything with it afterwards." + +"After what?" asked Edwina irritably. + +Her husband chuckled. + +"Wait, I'm telling you. It's a long story and a funny one even if the +joke is on me. You see Dud had a sweetheart on the other side of the +rectory wall. He was everlastingly edging toward it, tossing things +around to attract her attention and showing off generally. Funny +little girl. I didn't think she looked like much when we used to see +her first but gee, she certainly did come along when she got older! +Grew into a young peach! Dud just hung around silently worshipping, +pretending all the time he didn't know there was anybody picking +posies in the garden. I didn't know that she'd so much as noticed him +until one night in the spring when we were rehearsing for a special +oratorio. Some night!" The fat man sighed reminiscently. "All to the +Romeo and Juliet! Choir forming on the outside, old Brownly having a +tempermental fit as usual and Dud and I stationed over by the wall +ready to split our epiglottises; on our marks, set all ready to go +when Dud tosses up his cap, just as he used to when he was a little +shaver and Bing! Cap lands on top of the wall. So up clambers Dud--" +the raconteur smiled, "and I hope I may never see anything so pretty +pulled off as what happened next! That girl's head over the top of the +gate! Big dreamy eyes shining in the moonlight, hair parted, big comb +tucked in, lace dewdaddles around her shoulders! And Dud had been +languishing about her since he was twelve! First and only love! In +about one minute three seconds he had disappeared over said gate. It +was no place for a fat boy. Besides old Brownly was fairly roaring +from the chancel door, so I trotted along like a good child and left +Dud to his philandering. Brownly nearly had apoplexy getting along +without his pet tenor. After rehearsal I made a try for Dud, chirruped +under that blooming wall for about half an hour until an old gentleman +came out and requested me--er--more than requested me to go away. + +"Old Major Trenton. Ever hear of him? Civil War hero. The fellow who +raised all that rumpus about chaps taking pensions if they'd wits +enough to earn their salt. He wouldn't touch one. Seems he'd gone to +war after having a row with his wife, she'd lit out for Paris just +before war was declared. Died over there leaving an infant daughter +that he had his own troubles getting away from some of her mother's +French relations. I used to hear my grandmother tell about the Trenton +case by the hour. There was some kind of a queer will, something about +the mother's money going to female descendants and a lot of talk about +a bunch of property the dying wife had mysteriously acquired in +France. The old Major only had one arm left after the war was over but +he fought a duel with a chap who insinuated that his wandering wife +wasn't all she might have been. By the time he'd got things settled he +was the finest old grouch you'd meet in a lifetime. Had the recluse +business down to a fine point. Summers he used to go off to the wilds +of Canada or the Adirondacks or somewhere that his wife's will had +specified their daughter must live and winters he used to lock the +girl up in that mansion next to our church. Wouldn't touch a penny of +his daughter's funds, actually paid rent to her, my grandmother said. +Made his living raising dogs, lap-dogs, in an old stable back of the +church. They were all the style. The fair customers used to hope +always that they were going to see the fascinating recluse widower. +But they never did. The only time he ever came to the surface that the +public knew about was the morning after the daughter eloped with the +rector's son. Grandmother says the Major smashed up a couple of +reporters the _Hawk_ sent over to interview him but he did tell 'em what +he thought on the woman question. Nobody had the nerve to go near him +for quite a while. Not for a couple of years or so. And then somebody +found the daughter starving in an attic. The rector's son had been a +nice enough chap but he hadn't enough grit to earn his living and the +girl, though she wasn't so young, couldn't touch her property without +the Major's consent and as she was as stiff-necked as he, she hadn't +made any effort at getting that consent. The rector's son had died of +pneumonia and their baby was just recovering from it and the girl +herself never did get over the strain. Somebody carried her home to die, +which it seems she took some years doing. Dud's sweetheart the other +side of the rectory wall was her daughter. The Major had lost a wife and +a daughter and he evidently had made up his mind he wasn't going to let +the last generation slip away. So you can just about guess how popular +Dudley Hamilt was when he broke into the Major's back yard. + +"The old soldier didn't take a chance. He abso-bally-lutely +disappeared the next day. Took the girl with him, of course. Dud went +around like a wild man. He was twenty-one that spring, tall as he is +now and had about seven times as much pep as he has now, if you can +imagine that much. Evangeline looking for Gabriel was a paper chase +compared to Dudley trying to find his lady-love. He spent months at +it. Got haggard and wan, had a couple of fights with Burrel, a lawyer +who was the only person who knew where Major Trenton had gone. Funny +thing, it was that same Burrel who absconded with the American Trust +Company's stuff two or three years ago. Trenton must certainly have +made it worth the lawyer's while not to tell--for that lawyer was as +crooked as a corkscrew and yet Dud couldn't bribe him with everything +he could muster--which was quite some, for in those days the Hamilt +family had scads of money. + +"I made a sort of break one night--" The fat man felt of his neck +ruefully. "Tried to joke with Dud a little, it was a year or so +afterward and I thought he'd gotten over things--but--er--he hadn't. +He--" He paused and blushed. "That's he though, coming through the +door," he ended. "Want me to try for him?" + +It was the fair Edwina who dared however. She lifted her head +charmingly and beckoned. + +"Don't ball things up, Tommy," she murmured under her breath, "Leave +it to us--get out if you see he's still miffed with you--Please come +over here, Mr. Hamilt," she called softly. "I want you to meet Mr. +Graemer." + +He looked as blonde as she, almost, ruddy, lithe, but somehow old. He +did not smile at her greeting, he merely nodded. She gestured again, +so imperiously that he obeyed, but with scant courtesy, and he did not +look at all overjoyed at meeting the illustrious Mr. Graemer. He sat +down however, ordered his luncheon and listened gravely enough to +Edwina's chatter. + +"Have you seen me in 'The Juggler'? Aren't you willing to say I can +act now? He never would--" she turned to Graemer. "He always said I +couldn't--but, don't you think I do in 'The Juggler'?" she entreated +Hamilt. + +"It's an actress-proof part, isn't it?" he bantered, watching her +lazily. + +"Brute!" she pouted. + +"Perhaps he is complimenting me," teased Graemer. + +"Not at all," promptly answered the rude Mr. Hamilt. "You've all but +ruined the play with your everlasting managing. It's a peach up to the +last act. Until you chuck that maudlin bunch of slush and scenery at +us. Where did you get that play, anyhow?" he asked insolently. + +"Why, he wrote it last summer," protested Edwina. + +"Yes?" his uplifted eyebrows were insulting as he glanced quizzically +at Graemer. "Then he was about twenty-five years younger last summer +than he is now. The first two acts of that play--Gad, it got me up +till then, but the rest of it--" he broke a bit off a crusty roll and +buttered it carefully, "I can readily believe, Mr. Graemer," he added +deliberately, "that you did write the rest of the play." + +"You have to give the public what it wants," suggested Graemer +blandly. + +"No, you don't," said Dudley Hamilt. "You have to make the public want +what it's going to get--or what it needs." + +"Which is exactly what I wanted to see you about," drawled the manager +significantly. + +Hamilt shrugged. + +"If I ever did get into the theatrical game," he answered rather more +good-humoredly than he had yet spoken, "I wouldn't insult the public +by a perpetual bluff that they were getting something new. I wouldn't +keep handing out things that assumed the public all had salacious +minds or else no minds at all. I don't mean that I'd go in for uplift +stuff--that isn't what the theater is for--it's to amuse--to thrill-- +to wake up our emotions--it's to _play_--But as you chaps who control +the thing have it going now it's so damnably mechanical there's no sense +of play left in it. Why don't you find something that admits the +audience has an imagination?" + +"As for instance?" Graemer put in adroitly. + +"I don't know--" Hamilt sighed, "I haven't the least idea what. Only +it ought to be something that everybody is unconsciously hankering +for--something that we miss all the while--something we lack in this +machine-age. Something that will come across the footlights by itself +instead of having to have the spotlight show it to us, something that +would make us feel the way we did when we were kids--I guess it's +romance--and perhaps the spirit of it is gone--" + +Graemer smiled. He nodded to Edwina. Then he drew a long breath and +put his case bluntly. + +"I came in here rather deliberately, Mr. Hamilt, because I've been +wanting to have a talk with you for a long time. It isn't only about +'The Juggler' that I wanted to talk with you but about all of my +productions. There are so many of them and I am so busy with them that +there are a lot of angles of the game that I do not have time to +touch. The thing I need is what you have aptly described--some one who +will make the public want what it's going to get. Some one who will +make it think it's going to get what it wants. The kind of thing you +did last fall in politics--making the whole thing seem something any +regular fellow must find out about and something he'd have a lot of +fun finding out. It's struck me all the while you were pulling your +strings that that sort of work about the stage would wake up the +theater-goer the same way you waked up the voter." + +"It might," agreed Mr. Hamilt cautiously. "There might be ways--if you +had something to back your statements that the game was worth while--I +mean to the theater-goer--" + +"Well, wouldn't you be willing to think it over and have another talk +with me? I don't mean immediately and I do mean on a big scale. I'm +sure you understand that--" + +Hamilt motioned for the waiter, coolly insisted on paying his own +check and rose. + +"What you suggest is rather interesting," was all the answer he +vouchsafed, "I might." + +But after he'd gone Graemer looked after him and laughed. + +"Middle name is Cynic--but he's pretty young yet." + +"And the best looking thing," sighed Edwina pulling on her gloves, +bored with her long silence. + +Graemer was thoughtful. + +"He's given me an idea," he announced suddenly. "Or perhaps it was +Tom's gossip about him. How'd you like to do an ingenue part like that +missing lady affair--start with your head over a garden wall--call it +'The Heart of a Boy,' say--fill it up with this stuff Hamilt calls +youth--" + +Tommie absorbed his last pastry. + +"I've just remembered the girl's name," he announced, wiping a crumb +from his moist lips. "It was Felicia something or other--sort of sad, +wasn't it?" + +"Maybe it would have been sadder if she'd married him," suggested +Edwina ironically. "He is a grouch, you can't get around that." + +And the grouch, striding briskly up the avenue, was trying to be fair. + +"Poor old Tommie!" he thought ruefully, "I don't know why I should go +on hating him because he will blab--it's the nature o' the beast--that +stupid little much-divorced animal that married him--" he glared at +two innocent young shoppers who were passing, "Gad, women are such +sophisticated cows nowadays--" Spring always made him wretched, spring +always made him fretful, spring always sent him off for the woods +somewhere, any woods so long as it was woods. He pondered over whether +he could get away Friday or would have to wait till Saturday morning, +and eventually decided on Saturday, consulting a memorandum book +scowlingly as he did so, jotting down appointments. He noted that he +would have to be in his office at five o'clock on Friday. Somebody or +other was going to telephone him about something. Which made him +reflect irritably that of all the mechanical devices of a mechanical +age the thing he hated most of all was a telephone! He could scarcely +endure the stupid way everybody shrieked "Hello!" through it. He +wished morosely that he could take a week-end trip without any luggage +whatever because he always had a row about his luggage. He wished +there was some system whereby one needn't always lose half one's +luggage. + +Felicia could have told him! Infrequent traveler that she was she had +been properly educated on that point. However much she may have +yawned, at the tender age of ten, over a certain dissertation on the +etiquette of travel, given one summer afternoon by Mademoiselle +D'Ormy, Felicia aged twenty-seven, embarked upon her first journey +alone, found herself musing with mighty comfort upon the charming +definiteness of those never-to-be-forgotten axioms. For Mademoiselle +had made the small Felicia recite them over and over until she was +letter perfect. + +"On a journey the traveler should enumerate all the traveling +equipment in fives to avoid the confusion caused by losing one's +belongings. Count upon the fingers what one has possessed upon +starting." + +All unconscious of the amused glances of her fellow passengers, +Felicia Day, in her absurd bonnet and antiquated traveling coat sat +primly in the Pullman section that the doctor's thoughtfulness had +provided for her and counted her "five" just before her train reached +New York. She smiled as she counted, a whimsical smile-- + +Item one. A letter! A beautiful letter, reposing next her heart under +the stiff bodice of a frock that had once belonged to Josepha, mother- +in-law of Major Trenton. + +Item two. One fluffy, sleepy Blenheim spaniel hidden in the capacious +sleeve of a coat that had been Octavia's. + +Item three. A long and narrow knitted reticule, once carried by +Louisa, wife of Major Trenton, now containing bills and coins placed +there by Margot, said reticule held firmly, as Margot had directed, +with the center twisted firmly around Felicia's left wrist. + +Item four. One russet leather traveling bag once used by Major +Trenton, now containing modest rolls of ancient lingerie, Octavia's +massive silver brushes and combs, a faded India dressing-gown +belonging to whom even Margot couldn't remember, on top of which was +tucked a flat wicker basket containing small cakes and sandwiches +wrapped neatly in a napkin and weighted over all these contents, where +Felicia herself had placed it when Margot wasn't looking--THE THEORY +AND PRACTISE OF GARDENING! + +"Perhaps the wistaria will have to be pruned--perhaps the ivy around +the fountain will need trimming--maybe the narcissi will need thinning +out when they're through blossoming--I'm stupid about narcissi. I've +been living so long where there weren't any--" Her thoughts had raced +longingly toward the back yard of her childhood while Margot had been +packing the bag. + +Item five. "Myself," decided Felicia nodding, "I must be careful not +to lose myself." + +Which, droll as it seemed when she enumerated, proved to be the most +difficult item to remember. + +"_Likewise on a journey especially of a business nature, one should +keep clearly in mind the exact order of destination, choosing the most +urgent first._" + +Destination first. "Temple Bar" where one may find the Portia Person +who long ago promised to help should one ever be "in Trouble." + +Destination second. The address at the bottom of a grimy handbill that +announced "To be sold at auction for unpaid taxes--By the order of J. +K. Harlow, Justice of the--" + +Destination _really_! Eighteen Columbia Heights! + +"First," Felicia at least began her thinking clearly, "I shall go to +see the Judge and I shall say 'Don't sell Grandy's house because +Certain Legal Matters hasn't attended to things. Just wait. I know +another lawyer, he's in Temple Bar. He will attend to everything.' Oh +no! First I'll go find the Portia Person and while he is attending to +everything I will send a letter to Dudley Hamilt's house--then I will +go to Grandy's house and wait for Dudley Hamilt to come--oh! oh! +Babiche--I can't arrange things clearly in mind, I can't no matter how +I try! Only I must--" + +So over and over to the roar of the train she tried to drill herself. + +"First the Portia Person--then the Judge--" + +It was nine o'clock in the morning when, tired and bewildered, she +emerged from the subway at Borough Hall, Brooklyn. The little hand, +that "had never spread itself over a doorknob or a fire-iron or any +clumsy thing" struggled valiantly with the russet bag; the new +Babiche, cramped and shaken from her day and night of travel, poked +her snubby nose from under the traveling coat and sniffed and +squeakingly yawned. Louisa's bonnet had worked itself askew, the sharp +wind from the river was flapping the heavy clothing about her slender +ankles and displaying the outlandish old "Congress gaiter" shoes. A +distressed and ridiculous figure, she stood and shuddered at the roar +of the elevated above her and the jangle of the surface cars that +clattered past her and trembled at the disconcerting honk of the +motors that barely escaped crushing her. + +Officer Brennan, pompously regulating the congested traffic watched +the grotesque person on the curbstone and chuckled. + +"For the love of hivin," he thought, "Thim movie actors will dress +like annything for the money--" and glanced about automatically to see +the camera man. But something in the terror of the little woman's +glance flashed over the crowded crossing to his warm Irish heart, +"Hullo, she's no acterine!" He ploughed through the river of travel +and caught at her arm and felt her slight weight sag against him. +"Annybody as turned her loose--" he continued his soliloquy after he'd +jollied a newsboy into escorting her across to the Temple Bar +Building, "Ought to be sent up--" He vented his disgust at the +"annybody" on a daring chauffeur and watched until the newsboy came +panting back to his stand to nod a triumphant grinning affirmative +"'Nd her head up in the air like a queen--" he held his own head +regally to signal the cross-town traffic, "Queer lot!" and forgot her. + +It was noon when she came back to him, looking older and queerer and +whiter faced than ever. Temple Bar is a large office building and +Felicia Day had tramped courageously from floor to floor, from office +to office, persistently seeking the Portia Person. She had been +laughed at, had been almost insulted, had been treated with deference +and treated with indifference; she had talked with scores and scores +of lawyers, looking searchingly into their faces, asking her question +firmly and sweetly. She had asked it of busy lawyers, lazy lawyers, +suave lawyers, thin lawyers, fat lawyers, rude lawyers, young lawyers, +old lawyers; she had talked to dozens of clerks and stenographers, +appealed to elevator men, janitors, scrub women, any one who would +listen--she wanted to find the Portia Person, he had curly hair and he +was quite tall and he had had a client whose name was Octavia, who was +pretty and ill and who had given him some papers sixteen years ago. He +had talked with Mademoiselle D'Ormy, in a house in Montrose Place. Of +this business that she had for him the little woman was +extraordinarily canny, it was no one's affair save hers and the Portia +Person's. + +The patient girl at the news stand in the main hallway looked up and +down a list of tenants, checking them off with an over-manicured +finger as she tried to suggest. She had taken charge of Felicia's bag, +had offered to keep Babiche. Her good humor shone in a dreary morning. +Felicia began to have faith in her. + +"If I was you," said the girl, "I'd go get myself a bite to eat. It's +noon, everybody's going out--don't you see?" + +Felicia saw, she saw also that the patient newsstand girl was tired. + +"Do you go to get yourself 'a bite'?" she asked curiously. + +"Not till two o'clock," sighed the girl. + +"I wish," decided Felicia whimsically, "that Margot had cooked +_de_-licious foods for us--broiled chicken and baked potatoes and +a caramel custard and that we could go and sit by the Bowling Green +and have Bele bring our lunch out on the little folding table--for +you have been most kind to me--" + +The girl stared after her in amazement. + +"Well, I'll be darned!" she announced frankly to the elevator starter, +"that woman is the limit! She's certainly got me guessing! One minute +she seems as intelligent as anybody--only she can't remember the name +of the man she's looking for--but gee, I forget names myself--and the +next minute she's asking me to lunch on Bowling Green, as pleasant as +you please! Can you beat it? And I can't for the life of me make out +whether she's young or old--her voice's dandy and young. Honest, I +like to hear her talk, she talks so comical--but don't she look like +the last rose of summer, now don't she?" + +The elevator starter agreed that she did and whistled "She May Have +Seen Better Days" till the news-stand girl giggled and told him he was +"Too comical" but they both of them commented about her when she did +not return. + +"She may be a nut," admitted the girl, "But she's kinda got me going. +Gee I'd like to find the lawyer for her just to find out was she +Dorothy Arnold come back--or somebody like that." + +It was Officer Brennan who had dissuaded her from her attempt to find +the Portia Person. He had spied her, standing undecided outside the +office building and hailed her as he was about to go off his beat. + +"Did you find what you were looking for?" + +His sureness of manner and his uniform impressed her. + +"I couldn't find the man I wanted," she confided, "so I think I'll +just have to see the Judge Person, myself, wouldn't you?" + +He cogitated. Did she know what judge she wanted to see? + +She unfolded the grimy hand bill, the "To be sold for unpaid taxes" +that Zeb had brought to her. He read it slowly till he came to the +"Order of Justice Harlow" at the bottom. + +"That's an easy one," he cheered her, "I'll take you over there right +now and put you next to a fellow who works there. He'll slip you +through to his Honor himself and you can tell him your troubles." + +But in spite of being "slipped through" there was a deal of waiting, +sometimes in anterooms, sometimes in corridors, a deal of answering +the questions of not overly intelligent clerks, and late afternoon +found her sitting primly cuddling her restless doggie, waiting for +some one to bring the tax records. She was a little tireder, a little +hungrier, a little less sure of herself than when the friendly news +girl had advised her to "get a bite." She was keeping her courage high +by thinking over and over to herself, + +"After I see the Judge then I'll go to Dudley Hamilt." + +It had not occurred to her that this busy place was a court room. It +had no stately panelled walls like those that had been painted in the +background of the portrait of Grandy's father. Nor did she understand +when she was at last ushered into the Justice's presence that he was +the man she had been waiting to see. + +He did not wear a white curly wig and he did not wear a black satin +gown the way Grandy's father had. Nor were there any scrolls of vellum +with fat beribboned seals in this Judge's hands. Instead, alert +slender fingers riffled their way rapidly through a mass of papers +that a clerk put before him. Felicia watched the fingers until the +close cropped head was lifted and keen gray eyes glanced straight +through hers. + +The abrupt phrase with which he had intended to dismiss her died. He +stared at her curiously. He noted the traveling bag at her feet, the +absurd old coat and bonnet, the dark circles under her beseeching +eyes-- + +"She looked," as he explained afterward, "like a daguerreotype--old +and youthful all at once, faded yet shining--most extraordinary little +person--" + +"You are the Felicia Day mentioned here?" he asked gravely tapping the +papers. + +Felicia tried to smile. She managed it so far as her eyes were +concerned but her lips were too tired. She nodded. + +"And have you any other lawyer than Mr. Burrel--the lawyer who has +disappeared?" + +She nodded again. She spoke to him for the first time, her low +contralto, her clear enunciation, her perfect poise of manner, +startled him even more than the childlike simplicity--almost +absurdity--of her words. + +"There's the Portia Person in Temple Bar." + +"A woman lawyer?" he was very patient with her. + +"No, he's a man. I only thought he was a woman when I was little. I +can't quite think of his name but he is in Temple Bar and he came to +see Maman and he told me if there was trouble to come to him--I've +looked and looked, but I can't find him today." + +"I see--" the Justice looked out of the window thoughtfully, "but in +the meantime, while you're finding him, don't you think you'd better +have some other lawyer? Is there some other one you know about?" + +"Maman only had that one." + +It was going to be harder than he thought to make her understand. But +somehow or other he did it, talking slowly and very gently as though +he were talking to a child. + +"I'm sorrier than I can tell that you are having this trouble. This +house in Montrose Place, Miss Day, has been your own property since +you were eighteen years of age. It was formerly the property of your +mother--" he consulted the papers, "Octavia Trenton Day. This Mr. +Burrel who had charge of your property has paid neither the taxes on +it, nor the interest on some mortgages that he arranged on it, for +about seven years back. Can you understand that? And the house has +been rented in the meantime to a great many families, it is +technically a tenement house. The present trouble is not only about +these unpaid taxes and the unpaid interest, but you have violated the +Tenement House laws. You have not installed proper fire escapes or +plumbing, you have not answered any of the notices that have been sent +you. This court had to fix an arbitrary fine--which you have not +paid." + +"I nevaire do pay things," answered Felicia, greatly bewildered, "you +see Mademoiselle D'Ormy did not teach me much about money and Margot +only knows a little about money. Grandy paid for things until he fell +and now Margot pays for them. But you see Margot gets our money from +Mr. Burrel, he has all of our money so I just think--" she ended with +a businesslike decision, "you will have to get all that money for the +taxes and other things that I owe from the money that he has." + +"But that is what I have been trying to explain. This Mr. Burrel has +been missing for over three years. This Margot you speak of must have +had some other way of getting funds for you." + +"Margot hasn't vairee much," Felicia told him, "I can't ask her for +anything more. I think Mr. Judge, you'll just have to take my house." + +He answered this seemingly absurd suggestion with deliberation. + +"These papers show," he explained, "that Mr. Burrel offered your +equity in the house to the holder of the mortgage some six months or +so before Burrel himself disappeared. But the value of the property in +Montrose Place has depreciated to such an extent and the unpaid taxes +have piled up so alarmingly that the mortgager refused to agree to +that. The only way I can see just now to help you at all is to arrange +for a stay of thirty days in this matter of the proceedings against +you for the violation of the Tenement House Law together with a thirty +day Injunction preventing the sale of the house for unpaid taxes. That +will give you thirty days to arrange to pay that fine--which I have +made as light as possible but which amounts to fifty dollars." "And +the rest of it?" asked Felicia coolly. + +He consulted the papers. + +"Is eighteen thousand eight hundred and forty-two dollars and seventy- +eight cents." + +She pulled open the strings of Louisa's beaded purse, she let the +money and bills therein slide into a heap on the desk between them. +She frowned at it. + +"That's all there is now," she remarked, almost cheerfully, "except +some that Margot had to keep for buying sugar and flour and things in +the village--" She was so calm that he knew she was utterly unaware of +the enormity of the amount. "If I am going to have thirty days more," +she concluded, "I'm quite sure I can get the rest for you, I'll find +the Portia Person, I know, evaire so many lawyers weren't in Temple +Bar today. He might be there tomorrow, you know." She nodded +confidently. "But that's all I can give you now. You've been vairee +good to try to make me understand. I'm rather stupid about it because +Mademoiselle did not teach me those things. And Maman arranged for the +Portia Person to attend to it." She rose, she cuddled her dog under +her arm and stooped for her bag. + +He gestured for her to put the bag down, he scooped her small pile of +bills and silver into his hand and reached for her reticule and tucked +the money in slowly. + +"My dear Miss Day," he stammered, "if you do not find this--er-- +lawyer, you mention, a lawyer will be assigned by the court to attend +to things, and you would have to make your payments through him. In +the meantime--" he put the purse in her hand. "I am more sorry than I +can tell you that I have had to fix this fine--it is purely arbitrary +--I am very sorry--" + +"Of course you would be," said Felicia slowly, her clear eyes looking +at him without malice and without scorn. "You must be sorry a great +deal of the time, aren't you? You couldn't be really happy making so +many people unhappy as I've watched go to talk with you today--they +looked vairee unhappy." + +The gentle unfairness of her rebuke was most disconcerting. + +"Perhaps I make some of them happy," he protested. + +She shook her head. + +"I didn't see a happy one," she answered simply. + +An odd feeling that he wanted her to think well of him worried him. +Why he should have cared what this bedraggled, bankrupt little +creature thought he did not fathom, perhaps it was just that she +looked so helpless and so old that his heart smote him. Awkward as a +boy he stared out through the bedrizzled windowpane into the spring +rain. + +"I hope you won't think I'm impertinent," he suggested suddenly, "but +I believe you said you arrived from out of town this morning and came +directly here. Have you some friend to whom you are going?" + +From beneath Louisa's ridiculous old bonnet her hair scraggled +untidily, her pallor accentuated the dark circles under her drooping +eyelids. Yet when she looked up at him, the glory in those tired eyes +surprised him. + +"I'm going,"--oh, how she wanted to say "to Dudley Hamilt"! It took +all her reserve to finish her sentence calmly! "To eighteen Columbia +Heights." + +"That's not far," he felt an inexpressible relief that she had +somewhere to go, "I'm not quite ready to go home myself, but my car is +waiting for me. Suppose we have one of these boys take your bag down +for you and that you let my chauffeur drive you to Columbia Heights +while he is waiting for me--I should be very glad if you would--" + +She did not answer him until he opened the door for her. When she +looked up at him he was fairly startled by her wide ingenuous smile. + +"I was just pretending," she said clearly, "that I had my ox-cart so +that I wouldn't have to walk to find Columbia Heights--I was just +thinking how delightful it would be if I did for I'm afraid--as afraid +as Margot is of a bat--of all of the things in the street--you are +indeed kind--" ah, the stilted phrases with which Mademoiselle had +instructed her so many years ago!--"to suggest a drive for me--" + +He went back to his papers positively chuckling. + +"She's refreshingly different," he thought. "Refreshingly different." +But he sighed as he handed the papers to the clerk. The whole case +seemed a hopeless tangle. And now that she was gone Felicia herself +seemed absolutely unreal. He rubbed his eyes and plunged into the next +thing. + +But Felicia, resting comfortably on the wide seat of the judge's car +shut her tired eyes and let her head sink against the cushions. Her +heart was racing faster than this swiftly moving motor, she felt as +though she could not breathe. + +They came to a slow halt before a pile of bricks and mortar. Above +them loomed a huge unfinished apartment house, from which were +tramping forth the home-going laborers. The smell of the wet lime as +they tracked across the rather narrow street was over-powering. The +chauffeur opened the door and spoke to her respectfully. + +"There must be some mistake in your address, Madam, this is eighteen +Columbia Heights." She was overwhelmed, she could think nothing whatever +to say to him. He came to the rescue himself with a quiet, "Perhaps if +you have the name of the person you wanted to see--" + +"It's Dudley Hamilt." + +There was a drug store on the opposite corner. He disappeared within +its door and it was several minutes before he came back. This time he +had a definite word. + +"The druggist says that the Hamilt house stood where this apartment is +being built, Madam. He says he understands that the elder Mr. Hamilt +is dead but that the younger one has an office somewhere in Manhattan. +Perhaps you could speak with him on the telephone--" + +Speak with him! Her face glowed with sudden color. + +"How nice of you!" she rose obediently to follow him, putting Babiche +carefully on the cushioned seat. "Will you tell the druggist that I'd +like to?" + +The man helped her respectfully through the doorway, he was thinking +as had his employer and as Officer Brennan had, that this odd little +woman shouldn't have to go around alone, and yet, it was puzzling, she +didn't seem to mind doing it. He obligingly found the telephone +number, turned and asked her if she would like him to call Mr. +Hamilt's office for her. The telephone was screwed to a small table +near the door. Felicia waited, her heart throbbing. Beside her at the +marble counter two giggling young things ordered soda water from a +white-coated clerk. They were garbed in the triggest and gayest of +spring clothing, they were as impeccably immaculate as the smiling +ladies on the perfume bottles in the window. Back of the telephone was +a long mirror that reflected their pretty smartness and Felicia's +impossible dowdiness. But Felicia did not see anything at all save the +round black hole through which she was to speak to Dudley Hamilt. She +was awed by it as she had been surprised by everything in this amazing +day. She watched closely the way the man held the receiver; not for +worlds would she have admitted her ignorance. She took the receiver, +she sat down quietly, she drew a long breath. The chauffeur was +already disappearing through the door, the drug clerk was joking with +his giggling young patrons. Suddenly her rapturous ear caught Dudley +Hamilt's resonant voice speaking, + +"Who is it?" he demanded impatiently. + +Her low sweet laughter purred over the wires to him. + +"Can't you remember?" she asked quietly. "I am Felice.--Yes, I _am_ +Felice. I have been trying to find your house, Dudley Hamilt, but it's +gone, they are building a vairee big house there. I didn't have your +letter, that letter that you sent me. Not till Zeb brought it to me day +before yesterday. That was why I didn't write to you where I was." + +"Where are you now?" the excitement in his voice frightened her. "Tell +me, where are you?" + +The giggling back of her grew so insistent that it broke in upon even +the solitude of her wonderous moment. She raised her eyes to the +mirror before her. She caught a swift glimpse of laughing faces, the +impishness of their mischievous eyes made her shiver. She +instinctively glanced into the looking glass to see where their gaze +rested. And looked straight at--herself! + +At Louisa's ugly bonnet, at the damp and shapeless shoulders of the +gray coat, at her own pallor, at the deep shadows under her tired +eyes, into her own eyes, and saw the whole drab mirrored ghost of the +woman who had been the young Felicia. And through the telephone rang +Dudley Hamilt's eager voice, as eager as it had been that night when +he clambered over the gate. + +"Tell me quickly where you are--I must see you--oh, your voice sounds +as though I'd not lost you at all--" he laughed nervously like an +embarrassed boy, "I want to see you--" he repeated inadequately. + +She thought quickly, she could think of only one thing and that was +that Dudley Hamilt must NOT see her. + +"Let's pretend," she interrupted him, her low contralto voice +trembling, "Let's pretend that I'm somewhere you can't see me--I only +wanted--to tell you that I had your letter. I wanted you to know how +happy it made me to have it. Dudley Hamilt--" + +The receiver dropped from her hand; somewhere back of her the giggling +grew fainter and farther away. She shook her head weakly when the drug +clerk hurried with a glass of water. She was swaying, dimly conscious +of the awe in the face of the girl who was hastening toward her. + +"Oh, she looks awfully ill--" she heard a dismayed voice. + +"I'm not ill--" her proud chin lifted. She was pulling herself +together again, she even managed to stand by holding one hand on the +edge of the table. + +The whirling blackness of the moment had passed. Even while the clerk +was hastily calling back the judge's chauffeur, the drooping little +figure had straightened itself. + +"I think the lady was kinda faint," mumbled the clerk, mechanically +replacing the dangling receiver. "She's O.K. now--ain't you?" + +"Did you find where you wanted to go?" the man's respectful query +helped her. + +"If it's not too far," she answered with dignity, "I think I'd like to +go to my own house--it's in a street called Montrose Place." + +Inside the car her head drooped, she felt the new Babiche licking her +lifeless hand, she felt the whir of the motor. It vibrated through +every jangling nerve of her weary body. The whole impossible journey +was like a nightmare. + +"That wasn't I, I saw in there--" her thoughts blurred, "it's just a +dreadful dream--that wasn't Felice I saw--oh, Dudley Hamilt--I was so +pretty that night! And now I'm just old--like Grandy--like Piqueur--" +After a million years--or was it after one little minute?--the car +stopped easily. Like the dream that Felicia had hoped the whole +dreadful day had been. She opened her eyes as though she might have +been waking up in the bed that Poquelin, the father of Moliere, had +carved. + +"This," said the judge's chauffeur dubiously, "is Montrose Place." + +She got out slowly, tucking Babiche mechanically under her arm. The +man lifted out her bag and touched his cap,--she did not even see him +go. + +The huge willows still arched above Montrose Place, but they were shabby +and dying. And the mossy bricked sidewalk was gone but on its +muddy concrete successor, scores and scores of noisy, dirty, alien +children squabbled and cried. Some of them were pushing against this +strange woman who had descended from the motor, some of them fingered +her coat, one bolder than the rest sat down upon her bag. It seemed to +her as though more children than she had known there were in the whole +world were crowding against her. Wherever she looked there were +children. They hung from the once lovely old windows, they slid down +the once beautiful balustrade, they tumbled out of every doorway. And +wherever there were not children there were signs. Blatant, dingy +signs. The first one she glimpsed was propped before the basement +gate through which the housemaids had been wont to enter. It was shaped +like a tombstone and with amateur lettering announced: + +"TONY HE SELLA COAL WOOD ICE" + +And from the rusty iron balcony hung a ragged pair of trousers into +which had been inserted a board, the legs flapped dispiritedly in the +gusty wind from the river. Painted in scraggling white paint across +the seat of the trousers was written + +"A. Cohen. Pressing 25 and 50 cents." + +It was twilight. The tailor had lighted a single flickering gas jet +beside the basement window. In the old days the front basement had +been the housemaids' sitting room with a channel-coal fire glowing in +the grate and a tidy white cloth on the table and neat rows of +geraniums in the windows--a cheery sort of place. Not at all like this +stuffy, overcrowded, ill ventilated place with the two silent shirt- +sleeved men humped over steaming ironing boards and with a dozen more +clattering away at noisy sewing machines. + +A grizzled man scowled at her through thick glasses. + +"Vell," he rasped, "Vat do you vant, madam?" + +"I want to stay here." + +"You vant to rent a room? I calls mine missus--" he called stridently, +"I think she gotta room for three dollars, I don' know--" + +From the doorway of the once shining and immaculate kitchen a frowsy +head protruded, "Four we should get," whined a nasal voice "it is only +that it is on the top floor that we can make it so cheap--" + +"This," announced Felicia to the slatternly woman "--is my house. How +dare you let it get so dirty!" + +Her rising anger swept into her heart like a reviving fire. She +thought of Zeb, mouthing his scorn of the "dirty filthy heathen," she +thought of Mademoiselle D'Ormy scolding a housemaid who left so much +as a speck of dust on the hall balustrades, she did not see the +grinning woman gesturing to her husband, touching her forehead to +indicate Felicia's lack of wits. + +"That ain't my business," the woman shrugged when she saw Felicia +looking at her. "We pays out rent by a receiver since the Mister +Burrel goes avay--I gotta get mine renta in adwance. I gotta nice room +if you vant to stay." + +"But it's my house, of course I'll stay." + +"It's a nice room, three dollars a veek--you vant to see it?" + +The color blazed in Felicia's cheeks. + +"I should like you to take me to it at once," she announced with +dignity. "You'll carry my bag, please." + +The tailor's wife grumbingly obeyed her, preceding her new lodger with +ill concealed temper, her lumpy person almost blocking the ample +stairway. + +Up they passed from the basement to the once stately hallway. Not even +the encrusted dirt could hide the beauty of the old tessellated marble +floors and arched doorways but where the oval topped doors had once +swung hospitably wide their gloomy panels now hid the drawing-rooms, +and where the long mirror had once made the hallway bright with +reflected light a dingy ill-painted wall made the passage so gloomy +that one could scarcely see above the first landing. Silently +Felicia's weary feet carried her along behind her untidy conductor. +Unconsciously she tiptoed as she passed the closed door of her +mother's room, tiptoed as gently as though that frail sufferer were +still lying listlessly on the "sleighback" bed. Quietly around the +bend of the upper hall she followed, past the upstairs sitting room +and up the second flight toward the sleeping chambers, her heart +beating from the unwonted climb, her breath coming in quick gasps and +her damp hair clinging to her aching forehead. + +"Maybe," she exulted secretly, "it will be the nursery that I'll have +--maybe I left something--" she smiled as she caught herself thinking +it on the stairway--"perhaps there will be a little fire in the +Peggoty grate and I can shut the door and sit down and think clearly." + +But it wasn't the nursery. As they passed its closed door she could +hear the wrangle of many voices, a baby's fretful cry and the hurrying +whir of other sewing machines. The frowsy woman opened the door at the +head of the stairs. The-three-dollar-a-week-room was the hall bedroom. +The small room where Mademoiselle D'Ormy's bed had been wont to stand +in the old days--with the door left ajar so that Felicia would not be +frightened when she awoke in the night. + +With the door to the adjoining room closed it looked twice as narrow +as she remembered it. And it was not a nice clean room. It held an old +iron bed and a pine table and a cheap wicker rocking chair. Yet +Felicia could almost have kissed the dingy walls for they were covered +with exactly the same droll paper that had always decorated them--the +paper on which the oft repeated group of fat faced shepherdesses +danced about their innumerable May poles and alternating with these +perpetual merry makers were the methodical flocks of lambs. Spang over +the middle of the space back of the bed was the discolored spot where +she had thrown the large and dripping bath sponge. + +She felt suddenly very small and very, very helpless--she was utterly +spent. But there was something in her wide gray eyes--a dignity and a +command--that completely dominated the shrewish wife of the hump- +shouldered tailor, something that made the slatternly creature back +out of the room, for Felicia Day, with her hand on the battered iron +railing of the bed, had said clearly, "Woman, go at once." + +And when the door was shut she sat down in one chair and put Babiche +carefully on the bed. She untied Louisa's bonnet and dropped it to the +floor; she loosed the cumbersome traveling coat. Far out on the river +the ferry boats and tugs were signaling; across the water the glamour +of a million lights shone toward her. It was quite dark now; she +stumbled to the window and looked down into the back yard. The dusk +had mercifully blurred out for her the heaps of refuse and ashes that +were dumped upon the spot where the narcissus border had been. The +great iron pots on the top of the garden wall loomed out of the +shadows. She looked straight down on the gate to the rectory yard. + +She sunk in a crumpled heap and rested her weary head on the window +sill, then groped for the wee doggie as she heard the faint click of +its tiny paws coming toward her over the bare floor. + +"Oh, Babiche!" she whispered, "Babiche, how happy--we should be--to be +home!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE UNFINISHED SONG + + +You can't imagine anything more amusing than the satisfaction with +which Felicia Day awoke. The early sun was streaming in her eyes. She +rubbed them drowsily and sat up in the middle of the narrow humpy bed. +At the foot of the bed Babiche awoke too, yawning and stretching +beautifully, reflexing her droll puppy body and wagging her wee +feathery tail. + +On the floor the russet bag gaped open where Felicia had dumped it the +night before; her clothes lay in a limp heap beside the window. But +the clear spring air, deliciously salty smelling to the woman who had +been living inland so long, made her breathe deeply. + +"Ah! Babiche!" she murmured, smiling at the smudgy spot on the wall, +"What a naughty child I used to be!" She had a naive pride in this +evidence of her early wickedness. But a moment later she was frowning, +her eyes fixed on the grimy woodwork. + +"What unspeakably lazy servants I must have! I shall send them away at +once! Just as soon as that woman has brought my breakfast I shall say +to her, + +"'You are an abom-in-able housekeeper, pack your bags and go!'" + +She had heard Mademoiselle D'Ormy send a servant away once. It gave a +splendid sense of superiority to think that she was going to do it +herself this time. She pulled her travel-stiff body over the edge of +the bed, and grimacing as she swung her pavement-sore feet to the +floor, she wrapped the lovely old dressing-gown about her and opened +the door into the hall. She could not think of any other way in which +to summon a servant whose name she did not know and so she whistled +clearly as she sometimes did when she wanted to call Bele from the +farther end of the orchard. + +The house seemed filled with sounds, mutterings, babblings, little +cries, the heavy whirr of the sewing machines, the splintering clatter +of Tony, who was chopping his wares by the basement door--it seemed +impregnated with odors, smudgy, burning, unsavory, smoky smells. She +whistled again. + +An unkempt head, a man's head, was thrust from the nursery door, in +the quick glance with which she looked at him and beyond him she +seemed to see a score of persons. There were not really so many of +them, merely a slovenly woman who was pedaling the sewing machine with +a baby tumbling at her feet, an eight-year-old who sat on the window +ledge pulling bastings while a half-grown girl cooked something on a +stove that had been propped in front of the fireplace. + +Zeb's phrase--"filthy dirty heathen" trembled on Felicia's lips, her +eyes burned hotly. She grew furiously angry. Her breast was heaving, +her bare foot tapped impatiently on the chilly floor, but the man +slammed the door before she could speak. + +She stepped resolutely into the hall, she whistled again, this time +imperiously. + +No one answered. + +She crossed to the bathroom beside the nursery. She was grimly +determined now, she would bathe herself and dress and go down to the +kitchen and speak at once to the servant. The bathroom door was +slightly open but the skylight was so dusty that she could scarcely +see. She put down her hand to turn the faucet and drew back in dismay. +Her tub was already filled--with coal! + +And behind her a voice ejaculated, + +"You no taka mine fires! Get out!" + +Felicia did "get out," speeding so recklessly back to Mademoiselle's +old room that she was breathless as she shut the door behind her and +leaned against it laughing weakly. + +"Oh! Oh! I know it is all a dream! It's too ridiculous to be true!" + +She found enough water in a pitcher on the table to bathe her face. +She sat on the edge of the bed thinking hard as she brushed her hair. + +"It is not a dream"--she shuddered, "The back yard is real--even with +all the rubbish there, the back yard is real! The gate is there--the +first thing I shall make them clean will be the back yard--after all, +it won't be so difficult as my garden in the woods. I shall not have +to wait to find the pattern, I know exactly how it all belongs. And I +know that about this whole house. I shall"--she grew more determined, +"make it all as it was before. First I shall put all these filthy +dirty heathen out--it will be exactly like making the garden--only I +shall have people pulled out instead of weeds--they are all like +weeds, these filthy dirty people--I am not afraid of weeds." + +But all the same, when she was dressed and had begun the perilous +journey downward, she found herself very much afraid of the "weeds" +that she encountered on her way to the tailor's missus. + +Nor did she issue victoriously as she had planned from her attempt to +send the tailor's missus away. + +The tailor's missus stood her ground stoutly, she even forced Felicia +to give her three dollars for room rent from Louisa's purse; the +woman's awe of the night before had departed, she moaned strange +things about her children's starving, she reiterated her absolute lack +of belief that Felicia owned the house, she laughed toothlessly over +such a thing being possible. + +"You tell that to Mister Grady," she scoffed, "Mr. Grady, he is goin' +to buy this house, comes the auction next Tuesday--" + +Mr. Grady, Felicia discovered, was the rent collector; this fact at +last was something to seize upon. If he was the rent collector and it +was her house, certainly she could go and collect from him. She +learned that he lived across the street, a grimy finger indicated +where and she set forth valiantly. + +Breakfastless, almost moneyless, her chin in the air, she marched +across the street and faced the redoubtable Mr. Grady. He wasn't a bad +sort at all, though it was quite evident that he, like the tailor's +missus, hadn't the slightest idea that she really owned her house. He +rubbed his stubby, sandy chin and hitched his shirt sleeve garter +higher, + +"I hain't collecting for myself," he assured her, "I only collects for +the receiver for the estate--you can see 'im if you like--he's up in +th' Temple Bar buildin'." He was so good as to jot down the number of +the room for her. She thanked him and departed, leaving him staring +after her, scratching his chin more violently than ever. + +By noon she stood quietly outside Judge Harlow's door. She presented +herself without parley. There was a calm determination about her that +reminded him somehow of a fanatic with a great cause. And yet there +was a mirthful twinkle in her eyes. + +"It's been droll," she began, "I have been trying all day to make +persons understand that it's my house. I can't make anybody believe +me, not the tailor's missus, nor the rent collector nor the 'receiver +for the estate,'" her drawling imitation of the redoubtable Mr. Grady +made the Justice smile. + +"Oh, you've talked with that scamp, have you?" he flung the door open +and pulled out a chair for her. + +"I've talked with a great many--scamps"--she caught at new words as +delightedly as though they had been new flowers, and he laughed again. +She was too absurd, this grotesquely garbed old maid! "I haven't found +the Portia Person--" a note of gravity crept into her voice again, +"but I'm going to do without him--I have a plan"--she leaned forward +excitedly, "I thought it out--it's as good as the pattern of the +garden--the reason you have to make me pay fifty dollars for-- +violating that Tenement Law is because there are too many persons in +my house, isn't that it?" + +He nodded. + +"Then," she decided triumphantly, "it's quite simple. We must just put +them out!" + +"Miss Daniel come to judgment!" he congratulated her. + +They talked quite seriously then. The matter of identification was not +really droll, for there was literally no one to vouch for Felicia Day. +He found it difficult to explain to her that while he did not in the +least doubt her assertion that she was Felicia Day she would have to +prove, legally, that she was. + +If the "receiver for the estate" could find any of the papers that +Felicia had signed for Mr. Burrel of course her signature would help, +(he called a stenographer and wrote for a letter from the country +doctor,) he explained regretfully that until she could prove that she +was the person she claimed to be she could not actually take +possession of the house. + +"Then you can't 'actually' make me pay anything--those fines or taxes, +until you prove that I'm the person who owes them--" She came back at +him so quickly that she took his breath away. + +"Again Miss Daniel comes to judgment!" he teased her. She put him in +an extraordinary good humor with her alertness. Her persistence and +her indomitable courage were such futile weapons against the armor of +the law that they seemed pathetic, but her droll faith in herself and +her absurd comments about the persons with whom she had been talking +made him want to laugh as one laughs at a precocious child. + +She left as abruptly as she had come, tucking Babiche under her arm in +a deliciously matter-of-fact way. + +"Good morning, Miss Day," he called after her. + +She paused, she blushed furiously, she had forgotten Mademoiselle's +manners. But she made up for it. She dropped him the most amusing +curtsy with an upward glance like that of the one-eyed scrub woman who +had been cleaning the corridor. + +"Good marnin', yer Honor!" she groaned exactly like that rheumatic +soul. He laughed silently, his head thrown back on his shoulders. How +could he know that she couldn't help "pretending" that she was +everybody she listened to! + +"And she looks like a little old tramp," he recounted at luncheon to a +friend, "Most extraordinary person, one minute she puts a lump in your +throat--you're so sorry for her you could curse, and the next--Lordy! +the next minute you wonder at her impertinence--it's not exactly +impertinence either,--it's absolute frankness." + +"No manners, eh?" suggested his friend. + +"No manners at all. A manner," said the Justice neatly. + +Back in the little hall room she sat dizzily on the edge of the bed +and divided the last of Margot's dry sandwiches with Babiche. They +were both ravenously hungry. Felicia turned the few coins out of +Louisa's old purse and contemplated them. Wherever she had turned in +these two busy days she had had to pay, she was perpetually asked for +money. + +And quite surely she must have some more. She couldn't ask Margot, and +the "receiver for the estate" would give her none. She stared at the +smug faced shepherdesses. + +"Where," she thought, "Do persons get money?" + +The shepherdesses smiled back stupidly. + +Babiche answered her really. Having all there was to eat the wee dog +settled herself uncomfortably on the thin pillow. + +"If I knew where the Wheezy was I'd have her make you a cushion--oh! +oh! Babiche! How stupid I've been! The Wheezy got money, Mademoiselle +used to give it to her from Maman's purse, two dollars every day--for +sewing--why, Babiche, I can sew beautifully--much better than the +Wheezy!" + +It was a delightful moment, a self-reliant, decisive moment. Her eyes +sparkled, she caught up the ugly bonnet, she could hardly hurry fast +enough to find The Woman's Exchange and Employment Agency. She even +remembered the sign in the window. + +"Applications for work received Tuesdays and Fridays." She was so glad +that it was Friday that she could have whistled. So down the stairs +they went again, the little dog and mistress, and straight around the +corner, past the old church, there they stopped for Felicia to read +what she hadn't stopped to read before, + + "THIS PROPERTY FOR SALE OR TO LET + SUITABLE FOR GARAGE + OR MOVING PICTURES + APPLY YOUR OWN BROKER" + +She stumbled around uncollected garbage, she waited impatiently for +impudent children to move out of her way, she thrilled with rage at +the sordid world about her. + +"That pattern of it all is gone--I can't see how it was unless I close +my eyes," she thought. + +But when she came to the faded sign "WOMAN'S EXCHANGE AND EMPLOYMENT +AGENCY" she smiled. For that at least was exactly as it had been save +that it looked tinier and dingier than it had in the old days. She +opened the iron-grilled door, her eager heart anticipating the +tinkling jangle of the spring bell at the rear, and when the shadowy +curtains parted and a grizzled head, surmounted by gold-rimmed +spectacles tucked above a worried forehead appeared, Felicia could +have cried out with delight. + +For there was the Disagreeable Walnut, limping more painfully than she +had used to limp, blinking more uncertainly than she had used to +blink. Her rasping voice came thinner and more peevish than it had +twenty years ago but she called out just the same, + +"Well, what's your business?" + +Felicia listened dreamily; she seemed to be absorbing the whole shop, +the dusty shelves lined with useless "fancy" work, into whose +fashioning no fancy at all had crept; the cracked show counters filled +with pasty china daubed with violets and cross-eyed cupids,--propped +up rakishly in the very front of the dustiest, most battered case of +all the fat string dolly leaned despondently and smiled her red floss +smile. + +"Oh, how you've lasted!" breathed Felicia. + +"What?" shrilled the Disagreeable Walnut, blushing under her shriveled +skin. + +"I mean--the little person made of string--" murmured Felicia abashed. +"I saw her here--when we came for The Wheezy--Mademoiselle D'Ormy and +I." + +The Disagreeable Walnut snorted. + +"Oh, that Mademoiselle D'Ormy," she squinted through her adjusted +glasses, her shaking, purple-veined hands fumbling with the silk that +was wound around the bows to protect her thin old temples, "She hain't +been here this long while, have you seen her?" + +"Do you know me?" demanded Felicia stepping very close. + +"Don't know as I do--yet it seems like I did too--you hain't been here +in a long while, have ye?" + +"Don't you remember--I lived in that same house where Mademoiselle +D'Ormy stayed--she brought me in here when I was a little girl--when +we came to get the Wheezy to sew--" + +The Disagreeable Walnut shook her head. + +"I never knew anybody named Wheezy." + +"The Wheezy was fat--" Felicia puffed out her chest, tilted her chin +downward and hunched up her shoulders like the Wheezy. She cleared her +throat and panted and let her breath come sighingly through her pursed +lips, "She couldn't see why under the shining canopy the Major had her +make c-cushions for the dogs--" + +The shop keeper nodded her recognition of The Wheezy. + +"Oh, you mean Sophia Pease--dear! dear!" she wiped her eye glasses +tremblingly, "She's been out to the Baptist Home for the Aged this +long whiles. Her eyes went back on her--a nice sewer, as nice a sewer +as we ever had--dear, dear! I don't know when anybody asked me about +Sophia Pease--she made them dolls you was just mentioning--" she +motioned toward the disconsolate string toy--"dear, dear! she made +them even after she couldn't see for regular sewing--" + +"Now can't you remember me?" reiterated Felicia pleadingly. + +The Disagreeable Walnut shook her head. + +"Can't say as I do--" + +"But I am Felice--the little girl who came with Mademoiselle D'Ormy to +get Miss Pease--can't you see that I am?" + +The old woman's tittering laugh of denial made Felicia want to shake +her. + +"That child--why you hain't she--she wouldn't be the matter of half +your age--you must be thirty-five or forty, hain't ye? She grew up and +run away like the rest of her women folks--" she giggled sardonically, +"Was a young limb, she was, I used to hear her whistling at them choir +boys next door--a young limb--all the girls in that family was man- +chasers--the mother run off with the rector's son--younger'n she was-- +by a good two years I should say, she must ha' been thirty if she was +a minute--but pretty--prettier n' her mother--ever see the mother, +Miss Trenton--Miss Montrose that was?" + +"Did you?" breathed Felicia. "Oh, did you see Grandy's Louisa?" + +"Did I ever see her?" the Disagreeable Walnut leaned her sharp elbows +on the show case. "I see her when she was a bride--I'd just took +charge here then--she was a high-stepper! The Major hadn't a penny +when she married him but she had all the Montrose money and she got +him--some say as she told him if he'd marry her she'd live on what he +earned--but I guess he couldn't have earned the matter of her shoe +strings--not the way she dressed--she was stylish and tasty in her +dress--and then she eloped--with that lawyer fellow--some says she +didn't elope with him, but she went off for some French property her +mother had left her--but I dunno--she was an awful high-stepper. All I +know is that after she was dead and the Major brought Miss Octavia +home--" + +"Did you see Maman? Did you?" Felicia could hardly breath, "Did you +see Octavia--wasn't she sweet? Wasn't she darling--didn't you love +her, love, love her?" + +"Too high-stepping!" sniffed the old woman, "Whole lot of 'em was too +high-stepping for me--never liked any of 'em--" + +"She didn't step at all--" Felicia's anger was rising, "She just +stayed in her bed and stayed in her bed--how dare you say you--oh! +oh!" Color burned in her pale cheeks, "I won't have you say such +things--" + +"Well, I hain't quarreling with you about them folks," said the +Disagreeable Walnut sententiously, "They're all dead and buried +anyhow. And pore Sophia Pease might jes' as well be--mewed up in that +Baptist home where her friends, if she's got any, can't see her +excepting on Sundays--my stars! I wouldn't go to live in that Home, no +sir, I wouldn't--nor I wouldn't want to live at the--" + +"Can you tell me," Felicia broke in upon this flood of opinions, +"Where I could go to see Miss Pease?" + +"I'm telling you--the Baptist Home--" + +"I do think she'd know me," Felicia murmured thoughtfully. "I do think +she would." She moved toward the door, intent upon trying to see Miss +Pease. + +But the Disagreeable Walnut, for all that she was old, was quite +capable of handling her job. She called petulantly after her +retreating caller. + +"What was you coming in for--anything you wanted to buy?" + +Felicia turned. + +"How stupid I am to forget. I came because it was Friday, you know, I +wanted to have some work, please. For two dollars a day and lunch." + +The shop keeper pulled a dusty ledger toward her. + +"Are you registered or new?" + +"I--I think I'm new, I'm not registered." + +The ledger was pushed around toward her, the shop keeper reached +fretfully for the spattered ink bottle. + +"By the day or home work?" + +"By the day," said Felicia decisively. + +"Then sign here," a trembling finger indicated the line. + +It was a new page. No one had signed it yet. At the top was printed, + +NAME ADDRESS JOB APPLIED FOR DATE Mrs. or Miss. + +And Felicia wrote, guiding the rusty pen carefully. Last of all, she +wrote just after the printed Miss, in firm letters, "By The Day," and +pushed back the book. + +The Disagreeable Walnut pursed her lips, she couldn't really see +anything through the blur of her glasses. + +The bell jangled, a brisk old person, much like the Disagreeable +Walnut, save that she looked agreeable, entered breathlessly. + +"Sorry I was late," she dumped various bundles on the counter, "How'd +you make out, Susan?" She eyed Felicia as she began pulling at her +gloves. "Did my sister find what you wanted?" + +"She wants work," quavered Susan, considerably less reliant than she'd +been a moment before. "I dunno where the work book is. I declare I +can't keep track of where you put things, Sarah--is there anybody +could use her? She wants sewing." + +The brisk person swung the book around glancing at it capably as she +removed her hat. + +"Oh, you've signed it in the wrong place. You should have put your +name there--not the way you were going to work"--her finger rested on +the place Felicia had written. "What is your name? Your name isn't +Miss By-the-Day is it?" she asked good-humoredly. + +"Why, I think it is," Felicia smiled back, "I think it will have to +be--it's Day," she added shyly. + +"Miss or Mrs.?" + +"Miss." + +"And what kind of work, please?" + +"Like the Wheezy--sewing--for two dollars a day and lunch"--she +repeated it like a lesson. + +"There's a day a week at 440 Linton Avenue--Mrs. Alden's, perhaps you +could go there. Have you references?" + +"I don't even know what they are," Miss By-the-Day replied. + +The brisk person laughed. + +"Well you must have an address, where do you live?" + +"In my own house," her chin lifted proudly, "Montrose Place." + +"But if you have a house," the interrogator's voice was kindly if her +words were severe, "we can't possibly give you work. You see, our work +is for persons who have no other means of support, no other ways of +making their living." + +Felicia's lips quivered. + +"I haven't, that's why I came. You see it's all taxes and assessments +and fines and--it's so fearfully dirty and I haven't any money"--she +held out Louisa's reticule a bit ruefully. "You can see I haven't." + +"I see"--the brisk person stepped back to the telephone. She was +thoughtful as she waited for her connection. She talked quietly, +murmuring things about some one who looked thoroughly responsible. +Presently she wrote down an address that she handed to Felicia. "You +must be there at eight o'clock in the morning, can you do that, Miss +By-the-Day?" + +"There's something else I'd like you to write--it's the place where +Miss Pease lives--" + +"You can't go to see her except Sundays," Miss Sarah cautioned her. +"They're strict." + +After Felicia had gone the brisk woman straightened things about a +bit, humming under her breath. + +"Su-san"--she called through the doorway, "haven't we seen that woman +somewheres? She looks awful familiar." Miss Susan grunted. + +"She tried to make out she knew me, but I dunno--she can't never sew +to suit Mis' Freddie Alden and you know she can't--nobody can please +young Miss' Alden--old Miss' Alden was bad enough but young Miss' +Alden is worse--" + +Of her adventures "by-the-day" only Felicia could have "found the +pattern." And as in the case of the garden of old, even she was a long +time discovering any design in the confusing blur of their outlines. +Perhaps it was because each day was like a bit of glass in a child's +kaleidoscope, an episode in itself, ugly, irregular and meaningless, +until Felicia's rage against life tumbled each piece into position and +let them all reflect in quaint order against the clear sweet mirrors +of her faith and hope and charity. + +Who but Felicia could have shaken beauty from that first unlovely "by- +the-day"? Seamstress after seamstress had come and gone in that +impossibly selfish household, the meek ones enduring it until they +could endure no more, the proud ones hurrying angrily away; competent +or incompetent, not one of them had ever been able to please her +exacting employer, yet Felicia, mercifully unaware of the heart aches +she would endure within, walked staunchly through the iron gates, with +"440 Linton Avenue" boldly wrought in filagree upon their stern +panels. + +The house was set close to the street but wide side yards separated it +from its newer neighbors. It was pretentiously ugly with its mansard +roof, intricate porches, balconies and bay windows that had evidently +been added after the original architectural atrocity had been +committed. At her first glance as the pert and frilly maid opened the +door it seemed as though the whole house were filled with innumerable +elaborate draperies and fat-framed paintings and much stuffed +furniture. While she waited for the maid to announce her, her quick +ears caught the nervous undertone of the house--the whining voices of +children above stairs, the quick clatter of dishes in the far off +pantry and a politely peevish voice that was raised as its owner +struggled with an imperfect telephone connection. + +"--just at my wits' end--both maids have the day out,--the children +are off my hands for the day--they're going to be in the pageant--but +it is awkward for all that. Uncle Peter's nurse insists that she has +to go out and it doesn't leave any one to stay with him. Fred is so +unreasonable about our leaving Uncle Peter alone. Of course if the +Exchange did send the sewing person to do the mending I could go--only +you never can tell whether people like that are honest or not--they +often aren't--" The "sewing person" in the overstuffed chair looked +straight ahead of her. She shut her lips together and tried +desperately not to listen. + +"--that's all I can promise--if the sewing person comes and can sit in +the hall--I think it would be perfectly horrid if you had to play a +three table--if I can't get there in time for luncheon I'll hurry +around by half past two--that is if I possibly can." + +Her irritable voice was still raised to telephone pitch as she hurried +toward her new seamstress. It wasn't until she had ushered Felicia +into the draughty angle of the upper hall where she was to sew that +Mrs. Alden discovered Babiche. + +She objected. + +Felicia cuddled her tiny dog. + +"Why, she's a precious," she protested sweetly. "She'll just stay +right beside me if you can find her a cushion--" + +She felt very small and meek as she sat taking her wee neat stitches. +All about her the unpleasant confusion of the house surged on. The +half-grown children departed tempestuously for the pageant, their +mother bustled out leaving a trail of half explicit instructions +behind her. The last Felicia heard of her voice was a fretful +instruction to the cook. + +"--and you'll have to take something or other up to the sewing woman-- +some of that cold lamb will do--" + +Felice wrinkled her nose commiseratingly at Babiche's questioning +eyes. Babiche the elder had hated cold lamb. From the door to her left +she could hear soothing murmurs of a voice reading. A carefully +modulated voice that evidently cared nothing at all about what it was +reading. An irascible masculine "Well, well, never mind that!" +frequently interrupted the reader. At noon the voice stopped and a +patient nurse appeared in the doorway. + +"I'm going down for Mr. Alden's tray," she announced primly, "if he +should speak will you call me?" Felicia nodded. She stitched steadily. +She was putting new rows of lace on a torn petticoat, and so intent +was she in joining the pattern of the lace that she forgot to watch +Babiche. That inquisitive one was exploring, sniffing cautiously as +she approached the invalid's bed but a second later she was trotting +hastily back to her mistress. + +"I positively won't have stray animals about the house," a quavering +voice protested. + +This petulance continued long after the nurse had returned with his +tray. Felicia could hear the faint rumble of his disapproval even when +the door was closed. She glanced up in dismay as the bulk of the cook +blocked her light. It was not an appetizing luncheon that that +individual banged down upon the lap-board that was propped across the +receding arms of the morris-chair to serve as a table. There were some +microscopic scraps of the cold lamb, a cup of cocoa on which the +surface had long since grown thick and oily, a rather limp looking +lettuce leaf with a stuffed tomato palpably left from some former +meal. Felicia sipped the cocoa, she dipped bits of the dry bread in it +and fed Babiche. She herself ate the lamb and struggled through the +salad. She was really very, very hungry. She did not dare let herself +think that the food was unpalatable. After it was all eaten she spread +her napkin carefully over the empty plates and went on with her +ruffle. There was a console table outside the invalid's door. +Presently the nurse appeared and put his tray upon it. She set the +door carefully ajar. + +"I'm going out for my two hours, I think he won't want anything. I +think he will just doze, he usually sleeps while I'm gone. But he +didn't like his lunch, so I'll leave it here. If he should call, do +you mind taking it in?" + +After that the house was still. Felicia finished the petticoat, folded +it neatly and began making exquisite darns in a white silk stocking. +Babiche lifted her small head and sniffed in the direction of the +invalid's lunch tray. Felicia eyed the tray. You would have known to +have looked at that tray and its careful appointment that some one had +given it to the invalid for Christmas. The china on it matched so +decorously. It was an alluring looking lunch--crisp curled hearts of +celery, a glowing bit of currant jelly in a glass compote, half of a +delectably browned chicken surrounded by cress, and set in a silver +frame was a custard cup filled with the creamiest looking custard that +inspired hands had ever snatched from the oven at the psychological +moment. It was quarter of one when the sedate nurse left the tray on +the desk. At quarter past one Felicia fastened a glove button and +sighed. Babiche's eyes were pleading. At quarter of two Felicia +finished a Jacob's ladder in a long purple stocking. Babiche was +sitting up and begging with her paws crossed. Felicia made her sit +down by tapping her head with the thimble. At ten minutes past two +Felicia had mended two pairs of short white cotton socks. + +At twenty-five minutes of three a throaty voice whispered up the +stairway, + +"Nurse 'phoned she can't get back until after four and would I mind +giving Mr. Alden his orange juice when he wakes up. It's in this glass +I'm lifting to you--" A moist red hand was thrust through the open +space at the bend of the stair casing. "You give it to him if he is +asking before I'm back. I'm stepping across the way to my cousin's for +a while--" + +At twenty minutes of three Felicia had finished all of the socks save +the black ones. The silk for mending them was on the edge of the console +table beside the tray. She crossed the space bravely. + +She had her hand on the spool of silk, when Babiche stood on her +absurd head, a trick she'd not performed before Felice. Her mistress +cuddled her. + +"You can't have it, you precious little beggar," she whispered. "It +isn't for doggies." At ten minutes of three, another pair of men's +black socks had been added to the basket of completed work. Babiche +gave two hungry yelps that sounded painfully loud in that silent +house. Felicia struck her again with the thimble and began resolutely +putting a new dress braid on a bedraggled serge skirt. At three +o'clock a gentle snore emanated from the sick room. At quarter past +three Felicia smothered Babiche's most frenzied bark. At seventeen +minutes past three Felicia Day, seamstress, became a thief. + +"One simply cannot," as Mrs. Alden remarked "trust the sort of persons +one gets from the Exchange, you never can tell what they might take--" + +"They" might take just a bit of chicken skin to feed to a tiny hungry +dog. And "they" might lift a bit of chicken wing to hungry human lips +and after that "they" might deliberately and delicately eat the rest +of it and give the bone to the doggie. And "they" might crunch the +bits of celery and eat the last delicious spoonful of the custard-- +"They" might even do that! + +Especially when you remember that except for the dry bits of lamb and +the sad tomato Felicia Day and Babiche, her dog, had had no other food +save that from Margot's lunch box since they had left that bountiful +House in the Woods. + +At half past three, suddenly aware of the enormity of her crime, +Felicia put her face into her hands and shook with laughter. + +"Oh, Babiche! Babiche! Aren't we delight-fully wicked!" + +Babiche pranced joyously, tossing her bone in the air and worrying it. +With a sudden rush the wee dog dashed straight into the sick room, +scurried about under the bed and back to her mistress. The snoring +stopped abruptly. A waking snort was followed by heavy breathing. And +then the quavering voice called, + +"Miss Grant--if you'll bring that confounded tray in I'll try to eat a +bite--" + +Felicia's eyes surveyed the empty tray, her lips moved but she could +not speak. + +"Miss Grant--I said I'd--" + +She stood before him, her eyes dropped demurely to hide her mirth. She +had had the presence of mind to bring his orange juice, but when she +looked up she felt suddenly very sorry. For he was not a beautiful old +man like Grandy. He was wrinkled and yellow and gaunt and cross +looking. He was not sad at being old, he was bitter. + +Her heart went out to him, her mirth died as suddenly as a frightened +child's. + +"Are you really vairee hungry?" she asked solicitously. + +Her low voice was not professionally low like the nurse's, it was just +sweetly, normally low--to that irritable old man who lived in a family +of shrill voices it sounded like an angel's. Her smoothly coiffed head +and antiquated gown spoke eloquently to him of a past when women +dressed as he thought women should dress. + +He turned on his pillow and looked at her. + +"Lord no! I'm not hungry! I'm never hungry--but what in the Jumping +Jehosophat are you doing here?" + +"I'm mending. By-the-day, you know. Your nurse went walking. And your +cook went to see her cousin. So if you really were hungry--isn't it +lucky you aren't?--I don't know what we would do." She advanced to the +bedside. He made her want to shudder, he was so ugly in his long green +dressing gown. With his bald head and piercing eyebrows he made her +think of a gigantic worm. When he spoke his head waggled just as a +worm's head waggles when it tops a rose bush. + +"There was chicken--" he remembered petulantly, "I like that cold--" + +"It was vairee good--" Felicia assured him. Just to hear Felicia say +"Vairee" mouthing it as Mademoiselle D'Ormy had done, was refreshingly +different. "Babiche had the skin and the bones and I had the rest. We +stole it, you know--" + +Her confession was deliciously funny, her eyes danced laughter though +her tone was demurely proper. She was really thinking of Maman lying +so lovely in her bed and she was thinking how Maman had talked about +amusing people when they were worried and she was thinking that this +dreadful old man was the most worried looking person she had ever +seen. + +His grizzled hand jammed another pillow feebly behind his shoulders. +He glared at her. + +"Well, well, Miss--Whadda-you-call-it," he was growing more peevish. +"You'll have to find something for me--" + +Her smooth hand stretched toward him as quickly as a +prestidigitator's, with the glass of orange juice. He was too +surprised to do anything save drink it, gulping it throatily and +handing back the glass with a grunt. + +"And of course," added Felicia with perfect good humor, "I shall have +to pay a forfeit--I always did when I took anything from Maman's tray. +If I was caught." + +Her childishness of manner did not seem at all incongruous to him. She +was comfortably ageless so far as he was concerned, a drab figure with +a pleasant voice who treated him as though he were a human being +instead of a sick ogre. In some mysterious way her attitude suggested +something that no one had suggested to him for years--the thing called +play! + +"Forfeits for Maman," she continued, "meant I had to play chess--you +don't play chess do you?" + +He sat bolt upright. His beady eyes gleamed with excitement. + +"Miss Whadda-you-call-it," he retorted, "you go right over there by my +desk--open the bottom drawer--there's chessmen and a board. I've been +looking for four years for somebody who had sense enough to play +chess." + +Babiche trotted at her heels, sniffing at all the new odors about her. +Felicia moved easily, she got the chess men, went and brought back her +lap-board and sat patiently at the bedside. + +Four o'clock, half past four o'clock, five o'clock--there was no sound +save the shove of the chess men. The room grew dark--the old man +impatiently indicated the light. The little dog curled contently on +the foot of the bed, Felicia's sleek head bent over the board. He was +no easy opponent. At quarter past five nurse fluttered heavily in, +looked at the bedside and gasped. + +"Why Mr. Alden--" + +He waved her away. + +At half past five, the mistress of the household puffed up the +stairway. She paused by the deserted chair in the hallway. + +"Where's the seamstress?" she demanded. + +The nurse showed her. + +Felicia's hand was poised over a knight, she looked up gravely and +smiled. + +Mrs. Alden's hat with its waving plumes was overpowering enough, but +her voice, strident and angry, seemed to fill the whole room. + +"Well, really," she began, "I think that's the most impudent thing +that I have ever had any one do in my house! What do you think I hired +you for?" + +For a full minute it did not occur to Felicia that the woman was +addressing her. And when she knew, she rose slowly, even carefully, so +as not to upset the chess-men. + +"For two dollars a day--and lunch--" she answered clearly. She hadn't +the remotest idea of being impertinent. She was merely literal. The +only thing that saved her from Mrs. Alden's mounting wrath was the old +man's voice chuckling from his pillows. + +"And--" he looked triumphantly at his angry niece-in-law's snapping +eyes, "she had to steal the lunch, by the Jumping Jehosophat, she had +to steal her lunch! Why don't you feed people, Clara--why don't you?" + +"She had a good lunch, I'm sure I instructed the cook to give her a +lunch--" + +With the annoying cunning of the old he contradicted her. He dearly +loved a row with the mistress of the household. + +"Cold lamb--" he cackled, "I heard you say cold lamb--" + +"Very well, Uncle Peter," said Mrs. Alden tapping her pointed patent +leather toe impatiently, "we won't argue. I'll pay the woman and she +can go." + +Uncle Peter's head dropped pitifully, his bravado ceased abruptly, he +became a whining child. + +"Don't go, Miss Whadda-you-call-it--I want to finish the game. She can +pay you but don't go. It's my house, isn't it?" he fretfully +interrogated the nurse, "I guess it's my house yet even if I am half +dead. I'm not all dead yet, not by a long shot--" + +The nurse stooped over him professionally but he waved her away. + +"Sit down, can't you?" he demanded of Felicia, "it's your move." + +Felicia sat down, two spots of color burning in her pale cheeks. She +extended her hand over the knight again, bowing imperiously to the +angry woman. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes--outside the +echoes of the indignant woman's strident voice came across the +hallway. She was venting her ill humor on the children noisily +returning from their pageant, on the cook, whose frowsy head appeared +at the stair landing for dinner orders, on the patient nurse who +pattered about on errands. + +"--what we're coming to--the trouble is I can't say my soul's my own-- +sewing women! Playing chess instead of sewing! The last one couldn't +sew and this one won't--" She reprimanded a grocer over the telephone, +she sent a child snivelling to her bedroom. But the invalid, his eyes +intent on the chess board, paid no heed. He moved cautiously, +craftily, he had set his heart on winning. And he was too shrewd for +Felicia to dare to pretend to let him win. + +The minutes seemed like ages but at length, just as the angry voice +was subsiding, the old man straightened victoriously on his pillows. + +"Check!" he called buoyantly, "Check!" + +Felicia arose. + +"You play adroitly," she encouraged him. "And I'm really ra-ther glad +I stole your luncheon for here comes your supper. I know you'll be +hungry for your supper--" + +She was outside the door, as quiet as a shadow, fastening Louisa's old +bonnet under her chin, buttoning the old coat about her; even before +Mrs. Alden was at her side she had Babiche under her arm. + +"Here's your money," said the woman stiffly. + +Felicia shook her head. + +"You might as well take it, even if you didn't work full time. Of +course, I won't want you to come again." + +"No?" Felicia asked with a curious upward inflection. + +In the exasperated silence the invalid's voice quavered out to them. + +"Miss Whadda-you-call-it!--Call that woman back here, Miss Grant!" She +stepped to his door. "I wish you'd come around sometimes," he asked +her pleadingly, "I do admire a good game of chess--and it's my house, +I tell you, this is my house, even Clara can't say this isn't my +house!" + +"I'll come sometimes," she promised, "indeed I will--" she stepped +back to her abashed employer. "--you aren't making him happy," she +murmured passionately, "sick people and old people ought to be happy--" +and walked straight down the stairs and out through the ornate gates +leaving a discomfited woman behind her. + +There were exactly six cents left in the bottom of Louisa's reticule, +--it was when Felicia was passing a bake shop and saw a child buying +currant buns that she knew what to do with them. She went in and +bought buns. She walked slowly up her own stairs, pausing outside +Maman's door to push the bag of buns back into the niche by the +stairway. And stood a moment getting her breath and then reached out +her hand. + +"Let's pretend--" she murmured under the turmoil of noises--the house +was perturbed at suppertime,--"Let's pretend you put them there, +Maman--" + +Safe in Mademoiselle's room she addressed Babiche firmly. + +"That woman, that Mrs. Alden is just a WEED! A weed like the tailor's +missus and the rest. Some one ought to pull her right out of Uncle +Peter's house! She is worse than a weed! She ought to have to be a by- +the-day! And sit in a windy hall and sew and sew. And then some one +ought to bring her a tray, with messy napkins and just two pieces of +dry lamb and a sad tomato--and all the while that she was eating it +somebody ought to put Uncle Peter's tray on the table beside her! With +chicken and custard and celery and all! Yes, that's what some one +should do, Babiche!" + +Babiche begged gracefully for her part of the buns. They had a +delightful time together. + +"But I do wish," she murmured, after they'd settled themselves on the +narrow bed for the night, "I could remember whether Mademoiselle ever +let the Wheezy have such a dreadful luncheon--I shall ask her +tomorrow--" + +She did ask her, for she did find the Wheezy, just as she found +anything she set out to find, by sheer dint of persistence. + +It was late afternoon when she found her. The visiting hours were +almost over. The Wheezy never had visitors, she was sitting listlessly +looking at nothing at all when the attendant ushered Felicia through +the corridor. She was just the same old Wheezy, but more crotchety, +smaller and thinner, wheezing still and she turned her dim eyes toward +the doorway and called, + +"If you want to speak to Mrs. Sperry why under the shining canopy +don't you come in? She'll be back in a second." + +For several minutes she stubbornly would not recognize Felicia. She +grudgingly admitted that she did remember Mademoiselle D'Ormy and that +she did recall there had been a little girl, but she was as +incredulous as the Disagreeable Walnut had been that this frumpy, drab +looking person was that sprightly child. Felicia strove mightily to +reassure her. + +"Can't you remember when you used to sew for us at Montrose Place, how +I called you the Wheezy and it made you cross?" + +Miss Pease admitted that the child had called her that. + +"And can't you remember anything else I did? I mean that the little +girl did? For if you could I would do it and then you'd know--" + +"She used to whistle--" the admission came slowly after deep thought, +"She used to whistle real good, when the old man wasn't about." + +Felicia sat down on the edge of the Wheezy's bed. Her eyes were +shining. Mrs. Sperry had come back and was sitting by the Wheezy's +window. It seemed that they shared the room. She was staring +animatedly at her room-mate's visitor. From the opened door into the +corridor Felicia could glimpse other old ladies, peeping in curiously, +hovering about like gray moths at twilight. + +She smiled at them wistfully, as she was wont to smile at Grandy, with +her heart in her eyes. + +"We're going to pretend something," she called to them softly, "Would +you like to pretend? We're going to pretend I'm a little girl in a +back yard who has been hearing Marthy sing--Marthy sings a song called +Billy Boy about a boy who had been courting. She used to say, in the +song, 'Where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy--Where have you been, +charming Billy?' I can't sing but you shall hear me whistle it--" + +The little gray moths of women crept closer, some of them fluttered +into the Wheezy's room. The twilight grew deeper and deeper, and on +the edge of the Wheezy's bed sat little Miss By-the-day and whistled +the songs that Marthy used to sing. "Churry Ripe--Churry Ripe--" and +"Ever of thee I am fondly dreaming--" + +She whistled until some one came down the corridor to light the +lights. The Wheezy's bony hand was on hers, the Wheezy's tears were +falling. + +"Why under the shining canopy I didn't know who you was--" she +muttered apologetically, "My soul, I guess it's because I can't half +see!" + +"No, it's because--" Felicia sighed, "I'm not really that little girl +any more. Only the Happy Part of her is here--" she put her hand on +her breast. "I'm really old--like Grandy--like Piqueur. I can see +vairee well. I saw myself--" she paused, "in a mirror, you know, I was +that surprised--" she managed to laugh a little. "But Wheezy dear, +there's a man who has to know that I am Felicia Day. Will you tell him +that you know I am?" + +The Wheezy promised eagerly. And then Felicia whistled a while longer, +because one little gray moth, more daring than the rest wanted to +hear, + + "I remember, I remember in the years long passed away, + A little maid and I would meet beside the stream to play-" + +Her quavering voice recited the verses, while Felicia whistled, oh, so +softly! + +They fluttered after her as she walked down the corridor, the Matron +walked beside her and the Wheezy's arm was through hers. Of course she +was coming again, she promised them she would, they accepted her +promises with eager queries like children. + +"I'll come another visiting day--" she patted the Wheezy's shoulders, +"I like to! You all are _so_ good at pretending!" + +"Do you know," she told Judge Harlow in the morning, "I did find some +one who knows who I am?" Her face was glowing with achievement, + +"Even if you get so old that you don't look at all as you used to +there's some part of you that people can't forget. Some Happy Part of +you! You really ought to try it! Perhaps there is some old lady up +there who used to know you when you were little! If you'd go there +some visiting day and whistle for her she'd know you, just as quick! +You try it!" + +She went away thrilling with anticipation. He had a young lawyer +there, who had a great many papers. The young lawyer explained to her +that the Justice had asked him to keep track of things for her. And +they were arranging it so that in another week, she would possess her +house, mortgages, taxes, fines and all, and the thirty days "to +straighten things" but she would actually possess it and the tailor +and the tailor's missus and all their dreadful tenants would have to +go out, bag and baggage. + +She trotted into The Woman's Exchange at noon, positively buoyant. + +"You'll have to find me another by-the-day," she announced to Miss +Sarah. + +"How'd you make out Saturday?" + +"I--made--_out_--" Felicia laughed back at her. "She was a WEED, that +woman. The old man played chess with me but she didn't like us to do it. +I couldn't take the two dollars--" + +"I'm afraid you aren't businesslike," Miss Sarah chided, "you said you +needed the money." + +"I do," Felicia assured her, "that's why I'm back for another by-the- +day." + +Miss Sarah found another job for her, indeed she jotted down several +possible places in a small notebook whose florid cover extolled the +virtues of Dinkle's Cough Syrup. + +"This would be a good book for anybody so unbusinesslike as you," she +confided as she presented her client with it. "In the back here are +pages to write what you earn and what you spend and to keep track of +the days you are going out." + +It fitted nicely into the reticule. Felicia felt competent with it +there. She used to take it out at night and write in it. It had double +entry pages labelled grandly "INCOME" "EXPENDITURES." With the first +pages Felicia wrote a letter to Margot, a masterly letter in which she +bade her servant tell Zeb that the filthy dirty heathen were going to +be sent away, a letter in which she warned Margot that unless Grandy +were too unhappy she would not go back to the House in the Woods until +the house in the city was clean once more. She explained that certain +legal matters had to be attended to. The round stroke of her pen +seemed to proclaim her complete confidence that they could be attended +to satisfactorily. But the postscript begged Margot to tell Bele to +stay all he could with Grandy, "If Grandy looks at the chess board +tell Bele to put the men on it and shove a man every time Grandy +pushes one--you must all keep Grandy happy." And the last postscript +of all said, "The narcissi are lovely, I have them in my room!" + +Which was quite truthful. She did have narcissi in her room! Their +fragrance almost overpowered her. She lay in the darkness and +pretended that they were in the garden and that she was lying on them. +She had been most businesslike about them. If you could have audited +her accounts in Dinkle's Cough Syrup you would have seen on the page +where she first began her reckoning, + +"INCOME EXPENDITURES + Two dollars Bone--five cents + Apples, cakes and sandwiches + forty five cents + Narcissi One dollar." + +It is delightful to relate that no one ever in all this world +purchased more narcissi for one dollar than Felicia bought at the +florist's stand that wonderful evening when she made her first +expenditure from money she had actually earned. She looked so tired +and wan in her frumpy old clothes that the florist's clerk, who was a +sentimental young thing, assumed she must be purchasing them for some +one's grave. Even though he might be foredoomed to lose his job, he +recklessly tied up the whole bundle that her hand had indicated. + +"Honest, she made me feel like I oughta be giving things away instead +of selling 'em," he apologized to his astounded boss, who had met the +new customer on her way out, "Honest, she got me hipped!" + +In spite of the "heathen," in spite of taxes and fines--in spite of +the fatigue that still remained from those days of travel and hunger, +in spite of the strangeness of sitting all day stitching, in spite of +even the fierce longing, whenever she passed a telephone, to speak +with Dudley Hamilt, Felicia found herself--happy, happy with the same +haunting happiness with which she had long ago untangled the puzzle of +the lost garden, happy with the aching happiness that longs to attain +and trembles lest it cannot. + +"Babiche," she chattered, "When I was young, like the girls in Piqueur's +song I found my fun in spring forests; but now--" she was looking out +across the river at the gleaming towers of Manhattan, glimpsing the +jewel-like line of trolleys crawling slowly over the lighted bridges, +watching the busy shipping that scurried over the harbor in the violet +and bronze evening, "Now I find it in spring cities--" + +She consulted the garden book much, peering bravely down into the +appalling rubbish heaps of her beloved back yard. + +"All of the ivy isn't gone and there's wistaria and we can make new +ivies from slips, next spring it must be just as it used to be. +Perhaps we can find the old benches, I know exactly where to build the +paths. We will have to get some pebbles to make the paths. We must +plant plenty of narcissi again, Babiche. Because some day, there might +be some other girl who lived in this house and who walked in the +garden and when Her Night came we would want it to be just as lovely +as it was That Night--" + +She had no definite girl in mind, she had not really, although she +thought she had found the "pattern" of what the house was to be, she +only longed to get the "filthy dirty heathen" out and make things +orderly as they once had been. I doubt if she had yet visualized +anybody as living in that house, save Maman and Grandy and herself. +Yet even before the heathen were out she had brought home a girl--the +Sculptor Girl, the first of those starry-eyed young humans who were to +call the house their own. + +It happened this way. She set forth on a cloudy, threatening over-warm +morning, Babiche under her arm, toward a new address, a morning so +palpably "growing" that she longed to be planting. She had promised +herself eagerly that the very day when the heathen were gone she would +plant some ivies. She was pretending vehemently that the heathen were +gone and that she didn't have to be a "by-the-day" yet before night +she was exclaiming passionately, "I am proud, proud, proud I was a by- +the-day--" + +The new place was not a hard one. A fat, seemingly good natured +employer awaited her, a boarding house mistress who had curtains to be +mended and napkins to be hemmed, who was dubious about taking the +applicant when she discovered she could not use a sewing machine but +who decided on second reflection (aided by the fact that she had just +discovered that her sewing machine was not in repair) to allow Felicia +her day's work. + +The vestibule doors were embellished with gilt lettering that +proclaimed the place to be + + "Seeley's" + +Mrs. Seeley did not object to Babiche. Indeed she kissed the top of +her nose so resoundingly that Babiche was terrified and Felicia stared +with amazement. It had never occurred to her that any one ever kissed +a dog. If Felicia had been left comfortably to her own devices at her +previous "places" she quickly discovered that the Seeley household +made rather an event of the seamstress' coming. There was no necessity +for stealing a lunch. Indeed, when lunchtime arrived she was ushered +into the basement dining-room and invited to eat with the rest of the +family and as many of the "select boarders" as appeared. It was not a +good luncheon. But to Felicia it was an extraordinarily gay function. +For at the table was Mr. Perry, immaculately groomed in a discreet +uniform. Mrs. Seeley introduced them with a matter-of-fact statement +of their occupations. + +"Miss Day, meet Mrs. J. Furthrington's chauffeur--Miss Day is sewing +for me--" she poured their teas impartially. It appeared that Mrs. J. +Furthrington's chauffeur did not often grace the boarding house for +his meals. He usually, as he expressed it "ate wherever the run was." +He talked with whimsical despondency of his job which, it appeared, +was new. + +"Good gracious," chaffed Mrs. Seeley, "I thought you'd felt grand from +associating with swells and changing your rooms--" + +"Well I feel swell," he admitted dubiously, "but in a way the job gets +my goat. Munition millionaires, that's what I'm working for, can you +beat it? Last year in a Canarsie bungalow and this year a-riding in a +Rolls Royce! Everybody to his taste--mine wouldn't be for nobody else +driving my car no matter how much spondulex come my way. It will be me +for the little old low down 'steen cylinder racer when I get my pile--" +he slid his long body under the table and grasped his plate as a +steering wheel, "'Poor, get out of muh way!' my horn will yell--" + +His fellow boarders laughed uproariously, his landlady wiped tears +from her eyes. + +"Hain't he comical?" she appealed to her sewing woman. + +Felicia viewed the redoubtable Mr. Perry with amused eyes. + +"He's vairee good at pretending--" her shy approbation came. He winked +at her. + +"Any time you want a joy-ride, call on me!" + +Which fresh sally seemed to explode uncontrollable mirth about the +basement dining-room. Flapping his wonderful gauntlets together he +called a farewell from the doorway. + +"Only get a different bunnet--" he waved Louisa's from the peg on the +hall rack, Felicia didn't mind in the least, she was mouthing this new +phrase "Joy-ride," it sounded delightful. All the same she rescued her +bonnet and carried it upstairs with her. "I love that boy like a plate +of fudge," confided Mrs. Seeley as she and Felicia were ascending to +the ornate bedroom where the sewing was waiting. "He's the life of the +place. Everybody likes him. I don't know what there is about him, he +hain't so handsome but he certainly is poplar. Yet Dulcie won't stand +for him--Dulcie thinks he's fresh." + +It appeared that Dulcie was not pleased with anything or anybody. +Especially when she was having one of her "spells." Mrs. Seeley rocked +violently as she recounted to her new seamstress her trials with +Dulcie. + +"She's a caution. In a way I do owe her a livin'. She's my husband's +niece I know, that is by his first wife y'understand. She wasn't even +exactly his niece. But on account of his havin' to use Dulcie's money +in his plumbin' business we agreed to give her her livin'. Al kept her +in a nart school, a swell art school when we was first married. That +was a mistake. I said to him many a time to mark-my-words, it would be +a mistake. Of course when he died I didn't feel it was up to me to +keep her in a nart school. So I took her right into the family, same's +I'd take you or anybody. But it's no use. All she does is mope. Even +Mr. Perry can't cheer her up, though he tries. + +"Says he to her only last night, 'Cheer up, I'll take you a nice ride +down to the morgue.' I thought everybody'd die laughing to hear him +but she just got up and stalked out of the dining-room like somebody +had insulted her. And I can't get a peep out of her today. Just this +noon I says to her, pleasant enough, because I was short of help, +wouldn't she come down and wait on table, but would she?" demanded +Mrs. Seeley bitterly, "She would not. She said she was no scullery +maid and slammed the door in my face and went back to her wet mud--" + +"Oh, is she building a garden?" asked Felice eagerly. + +"Nothing so useful as a garden," snorted Mrs. Seeley, "it's clay she's +fussin' with, thinkin' she's going to be able to make statues some +day. Statues! What kind of a job is that nowadays! Artist jobs is +impractical. Dulcie is awful impractical. I offered to send her to +business college, she could make a good living, but no, she's gotta +make statues! With the parks all full of 'em now and that kind of +thing going out of style for parlors! I put both my Rogers groups +upstairs in the attic when I bought the phonograph--there's no style +to a statue any more. And she wants to learn to make 'em!" + +"But I should think," breathed the seamstress her eyes glowing as she +lifted them from her work, "that you'd be proud to have her want to +try to make something." + +What Mrs. Seeley thought expressed itself in the bang of the door as +she left to answer a strident summons below stairs. But after she had +gone Felice became aware of continued sobbing in the next room, a +sobbing as penetrating, for all it was not so loud, as that of the +noisy Italian baby at home. + +For a long time the weeping was sustained and dreary. It never ceased +save when Mrs. Seeley came back to give Felicia instructions about her +work, but usually after her footfalls had clattered down the stairway +the crying would begin again, very softly. Frequently Felicia could +hear the pad, pad, pad of stockinged feet. She knew that whenever the +crying stopped the grieving one walked to and fro restlessly. After a +longer interval of silence than usual Felicia became aware that +Babiche was sniffing excitably. The nervous sniff that had always +characterized the wee doggies on days when the carbolic water was +ready for the rinsing. + +Felicia wrinkled her own nose tentatively. Presently she got up and +opened the door to the next room. It was empty. But adjoining it was +an untidy bathroom with a dark wainscoting and a grimy enameled tub +and standing over near the uncurtained window was a boyish figure, +wrapped in a man's overcoat, with a bottle in her hand. She had wept +so long, poor girl, that Felicia couldn't tell very much about how she +really looked, except that it seemed to her she had never seen any one +so unhappy. + +Felicia stood there, an absurdly dowdy figure, Babiche clasped in her +arm, and smiled timorously. + +"Where is your dog?" she asked sweetly. + +"What dog?" demanded a sulky voice. + +"The dog you were going to wash--" Felicia's voice was casual. "With +the 'scarbolic.'" + +"I wasn't--trying to wash any dog--" the girl breathed dully. + +Felicia moved quickly, she took the bottle from the girl's hand. "Then +I wish you'd lend me your--'scarbolic,'" she entreated sweetly, +"Babiche really needs a bath." + +The youthful sufferer stared from her tear-stained eyes, stared with +all her might at the shabby, frumpy, middle-aged looking little person +who had taken the bottle from her hand. + +"I can't stand it--" she sobbed bitterly, "I've got to quit--you don't +know how I feel--I feel as if--" + +"When you feel that way," interrupted Felicia quietly, "you mustn't +have a 'scarbolic' bottle, that's a thing that will make you go dead--" + +"It's my own business if I do--I'd rather be dead than the way I am--" +she stretched out her arms passionately, "I haven't room to breathe! I +did have that top floor front you know, it was a peach of a place to +work. But she rented it to a chauffeur and put me in this hole--oh, +oh, when all I asked was room for my model stand and room for my clay +--when all I wanted was room for Pandora--you can't know how I feel--" + +"But I do know how you feel!" slender hands cupped the girl's face. +Felicia's eyes looked through into the girl's soul. "You feel like 'I +can't get out, I can't get out, sang the starling'! Once I did. +Perhaps every one of us comes to a time when she feels all shut in--I +went out into my garden when I felt that way. It is a big garden but +it felt smaller than this room. I cried in it all night long, walking +up and down and up and down--quite sure I didn't want to live any +more. But when it was getting to be morning I saw a rosebush by the +wall. In a jar. I'd forgotten to take care of it and Bele--he is good, +you know, but stupid--had been tending it. Poor Rosebush! + +"It was much too big for its jar. Its roots were all cramped and its +top all cut back so it couldn't bloom--you mustn't prune some roses +too much, you know--I've just been thinking, that you're rather like +my rosebush. You're Dulcie, aren't you? I think I know exactly what +you need. If you'd just come along with me--I've a big room--I mean I +will have as soon as I get the abundance-of-weeds-for-which-we-have- +no-name out--I'd just love you to come with me. You'd be proud, proud, +proud if you did-- + +"Listen, that's Mrs. Seeley coming back up the stairs. She's bringing +me my two dollars. You put on your shoes and when she's down the +stairs I'll whistle--so--vairee softly. And then you will come out and +down we'll go. It will really be a great favor if you will--it's a big +house, my house and I'm ra-_ther_ lonely--" + +It wasn't until they were outside in the shadowy, rain-sweet street +that Dulcie realized she had been coaxed that far. She drew back. +"I've no hat," she whimpered, "It's no use--I don't want to go--" + +"You would," the seamstress insisted, "if you only knew what fun it's +going to be. And we'll stop in the Exchange and buy you a cap. It's a +darling cap. I've wanted it evaire since I saw it, it's velvet, rather +like a choir boy's, only it has a tassel." Her arm was through +Dulcie's, they were really walking along. "And we shall buy our supper +there too. Miss Susan has fat jars of baked beans and little round +corn muffins and I think she has quince jelly--" + +She actually managed to get her hysterical guest as far as the shop +without further parley. The girl took the cap and the parcels that +Felicia handed her, turning her head away when she fancied Miss Susan +was eyeing her sharply. They walked around the corner and into the +gateway of that unspeakably dirty house. The girl drew back in dismay. + +"Oh, it's altogether too dreadful--" she exclaimed. "It's worse than +Aunt Seeley's--I can't go in--" + +But she did go in and up the stairs too, protesting weakly all the +way. She was plainly exhausted from her emotions, and clung to +Felicia's arm. And when they were safe in Mademoiselle's room she +looked about her wildly. "It's an awful place--" she moaned. + +"It's going to be lovely," promised Felicia stoutly, "It used to be +lovely. Look here," she drew the girl to the window and pointed out +across the gleaming river, "that's what you'll see every night from +your windows. You won't be in this little room, you'll be in the big +room next, the room that used to be my nursery." + +She wheedled the tired girl into eating a bit. She coaxed her to lie +on the bed and watch the stars. She did not talk any more, just +listened to sobbing breaths that the girl drew--listened as she sat in +the wicker chair with Babiche cuddled in her arms. And presently the +girl slept. And Felicia sighed and slept too. + +Morning was droll and difficult. An enormous bumping and thumping +awakened the sleepers. Cramped and dazed from her uncomfortable night +in the chair Felicia jumped up startled; drowsy and bewildered in her +unaccustomed bed, Dulcie sat up and stared at her. + +"Whatever is it?" Dulcie stammered. + +Felicia clapped her hands. + +"It's the weeds--this is going to be a wonderful, wonderful day, +Dulcie, you're going to be so glad--just think! The tailor and the +tailor's missus and all of them are going--" + +They were not only going, they had already started. All day long the +old house groaned under their leave-taking. All day long Felicia +chattered to Dulcie of her plans of how they should find where the old +furniture had gone and bring it back; of how they should make the +whole house lovely. + +Dulcie was shy and silent most of the time, her eyes were still red, +she was still numb from her nerve-racking day before, still shamed by +the fact that this queer little creature had given her her bed and +slept in a chair beside her. Late afternoon found the two of them +standing in the empty room that had been the nursery. They had been +laughing a little over the absurdity of their situation; the tailor's +missus had removed the bed and chair from Mademoiselle's room, and +they were furnitureless. But Dulcie was waking up mentally after her +day of stupor. "Impractical" as her aunt had proclaimed her, she +proved the contrary very quickly. + +"Steamer chairs," she decided instantly, "I left two steamer chairs +and some rugs over on Ella Slocum's back porch--I'll bet we could get +a grocery boy to bring them over for us--" + +"Only what good will it do?" she tramped about the great room +restlessly, "It's no use, Miss Day, you might better have let me quit +--you've got troubles enough without bothering with me--" + +"Isn't there room enough?" asked Felicia shyly. "Isn't it big enough?" + +"It's big enough for the model stand--" she admitted moodily. "It's a +good light. I could paint these silly papered walls--" Felicia sighed. +Dear old shepherds and shepherdesses! It was not the gathering +twilight alone that let them mist away as she looked. + +"Are they so silly?" she asked. "I didn't know." But the girl did not +answer her. + +"It's no use," that moody creature was muttering despondently. +"There's space enough but it's no use. I don't seem to want to do it +any more--I used to sit and dream about how I'd do it and how it would +make other people dream just to look--it wasn't going to be any +ordinary Pandora--it was to be a symbol--a symbol of what goes on in +your heart when you're young--before you know about life--oh, I can't +chitter-chatter about it--but I used to think I could make it--" + +"Of course you can make it," Felicia insisted. "Not just now--" she +led the girl to the window, "right now, the first thing you'll have to +do is to help me in the garden. Doesn't it look ugly down there? It +used to be lovely. Probably as soon as it's lovely again you will walk +around in it and dream about your Pandora. I used to dream a lot of +things in that garden. Some day, while I'm off sewing on my stupid +sewing, you'll come dashing upstairs--and begin! Think what fun it +will be when I get home that night! I'll call out, 'Where's my +sculptor girl?' And you'll call out--'Here, I've begun!'" Felicia +waved her hand into the gloom behind them as though Pandora were +already mysteriously there. Perhaps she was! + +At any rate that was the moment that Felicia won! + +The Sculptor Girl laughed, a nervous little laugh, and dashed off to +arrange for the steamer chairs. Presently she came back with them and +found Felicia had kindled a fire in the Peggoty grate. It was +delightfully cosy with two candles burning recklessly on the mantel- +shelf and Felicia and Dulcie sitting by the embers of the little fire. +They'd had a supper of sandwiches and milk. Babiche was curled at +their feet and they were planning excitably what they'd do with the +house, when from the depths of the empty hall the old bell shrilled. +They'd bolted the doors an hour before when the last of the tailor's +tribe had departed. It was the Sculptor Girl who mustered courage to +go down. + +"It's all right," she called up to Felicia, "it's Miss Sarah from the +Exchange. There's a Mr. Alden with her--will you come down?" + +He was a very apologetic Mr. Alden. + +"I know it's after eight," he said, "but I've had a time finding you. +It's Uncle Peter. He's--well, Miss Grant and the doctor think he's +pretty bad tonight. He's a notion he wants to play chess with you, +he's been asking all day. I couldn't find you till now. Would you come +along for an hour or two to pacify him?" + +The Sculptor Girl decided for her. + +"Babiche and I will wait up for you," she said. "We'll wait--" + +It was as comfortable a motor as the Judge's. Little Miss Day let +herself rest in its cushions. She felt rather lonely without Babiche, +but she was glad she had had her to leave with the Sculptor Girl. + +"Maybe the dear old duffer will be asleep when we get there and I can +send you right back," Mr. Alden suggested hopefully. "He was so darned +good to me when I was a kid that I can't let him miss anything I can +get for him--Lord knows that's not much--I thought I could get you +right away but I didn't have any name and I couldn't find out where +you came from--my wife didn't have your address--" + +They entered quietly and were up the stairway quickly. Outside the +door he paused, "Just as soon as he is asleep," he whispered, "you +come out and let me know--I'll be in the library downstairs with some +chaps and I'll phone for the car to come around for you--you're +awfully good to come--" he was a bit awkward. + +"Uncle Peter" looked no more miserable than, he had the week before +when she had met him, save that his eyes burned deeper. His voice was +more petulant, he wasted no time in preliminaries, merely ejaculated a +grateful, + +"Ah! Why didn't you come earlier?" + +The nurse sat by her light, reading; the chess board lay on the small +table; Uncle Peter was propped in his cushions and the game began. + +From below stairs Felicia could hear faint echoes of conversations. +She had heard the mistress of the house departing in the same motor +that had brought them, but a steady rumble of men's voices and a faint +aroma of cigars floated up the stairway. You can't think what +exultation it gave her, just having a sense of nearness to sturdy +masculinity after a lifetime of invalids and old folks! She liked the +spirit of argument that dimly arose, the eager confab--"It's not +feasible"--"It couldn't be pulled off"--"Quixotic plan"--"take a mint +of money--" + +The sheltered sick room was like all her life, but below stairs there +were--men! She moved her pawns quietly, watching Uncle Peter's adroit +game. She watched too, something else, the light in Uncle Peter's +eyes. They sparkled. + +The room was impossibly hot yet the old man shivered, just as Grandy +shivered, and drew his dressing gown closer. Felicia was very tired +from her exciting day. She grew paler and paler; the circles under her +eyes grew deeper; her forehead was moist; her hand trembled a bit. But +presently she heard. + +"Check!" She roused herself, she had been playing badly, he had caught +her! But he laughed, a feeble, senile laugh, and leaned back, +altogether pleased with himself. + +"A drink," he panted and closed his eyes. "Come again, Miss Whadda- +you-call-it-" + +The nurse's eyes reproached her as she tiptoed out. + +A pert maid arose, from the hall chair, + +"Mr. Alden said for me to 'phone the garage, that the car would be +here for you directly--will you sit down--" + +There was a bench on the stair landing below them beside an open +window. Felicia gestured toward it, and the maid nodded. + +She could hear the voices more clearly now, she could even see two of +the speakers through an arched doorway. They were sprawled easily in +big chairs, a blue haze of smoke floating over them. One of them was +laughing, + +"That's all right--we agree with you--we'll go in your wild scheme if +you can find some other fools too--only, I say Dud, before you beat it +just sing a couple things, will you? You might be gone six months +instead of three and that's too long between songs. I know you aren't +singing and you haven't any voice and all that, but just a couple to +show there's no hard feeling--those things you used to--the one that +the darkey boy wrote--that Dunbar chap--'The Sum'--and that other one--" + +Others added to the appeal. Some one objected. Felicia caught a brief +glimpse of a tall figure, over-coat on arm, the doorway, and a hand +pulling him back. But on he came, protesting vibrantly that he never +sang any more. He looked up toward the figure on the stairs, + +"I believe I'll run up to say Howdy and Good-by to your Uncle Peter--" + +One step, two steps he had ascended before she could actually see him. +Then with her heart in her eyes she looked to him--he was so tall, so +broad shouldered, so superb in his ruddy blondeness! + +"Oh, Dudly Hamilt!" her lips moved. But she leaned back against the +shadow of the curtains as he drew nearer. + +He was so close she could touch him, he was so close that at last he +saw her--that is he saw a little drab person whose figure was lost in +a caped coat. + +"Beg pardon," he murmured--and passed her-- + +She buried her face in her hands. She was too weak to move. She was +still sitting with her face thus hidden when he came down the stairway +a moment later, calling back to the invalid, + +"You'll be as good as ever when it's summer--" + +The others were waiting for him at the foot of the stairway. + +"Un-cle Pe-ter-" called Freddie Alden, "ask Dud to sing 'Who Knows' +for you." Uncle Peter did. + +And so with her pulse racing madly, with her throat so dry it seemed +as though she could not breathe, Felicia Day sat and listened, +listened with her trembling hand over her mouth to keep her lips from +crying out. Listened to the first firm chords as Dudley Hamilt's long +fingers moved over the keys, listened as he began to sing. He wasn't +using very much voice, just enough to let the melody ring upward to +Uncle Peter, round and smooth and inexpressibly caressing. He wasn't +singing as though it mattered especially what he sang, indeed at first +the phrasing was careless. But presently his voice soared more freely, +it grew vibrant with longing. + + "Thou art the soul of a summer's day, + Thou art the breath of a rose; + But the summer is fled and the rose is dead; + Where are they gone, who knows, who knows? + + "Thou art the blood of my heart of hearts, + Thou art my soul's repose; + But my heart's grown numb and my soul is dumb--" + +The song stopped abruptly. + +"Sorry. Can't sing it.--'Night, Uncle Peter. 'Night everybody--" A +door banged. + +"Gad, he's a queer chap! If I had his voice I'd sing--" she caught the +fatuous phrases of the man who had laughed but after that she was no +longer sure of herself. She could only hear the muffled rise of her +own sobbing. + +The chauffeur asked a respectful question at the doorway. + +"Why, yes," answered Freddie Alden, "the maid 'phoned--wait a minute-- +Hullo--" he called. But a second later he was racing upward, + +"I say, Miss Grant--this little woman here--she's fainted--" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +"CERTAIN LEGAL MATTERS" + + +Of Janet MacGregor and why she couldn't abide Mrs. Freddie Alden the +Poetry Girl once said epics could have been written. Janet was gaunt +and wiry, the relict of the late Jock MacGregor, who had cared for +Uncle Peter Alden's horses for a lifetime and died leaving his savings +and a bit of life insurance to Janet, together with an admonition to +"keep an eye on Mr. Peter." + +Janet did. She dropped into the Alden kitchen frequently of an evening +to glean a melancholy satisfaction from the morbid details of Uncle +Peter's lingering betwixt life and death. Whenever--which was +frequent--there was an upheaval in the Alden's domestic arrangements, +Janet filled in the gaps, spoke her mind freely to Mrs. Freddie, +secure in the knowledge that Mrs. Freddie wouldn't talk back until a +new cook arrived, and usually departed in a wholesome rage--which +didn't at all deter her from accepting Mr. Freddie's sizable peace +offering. + +To see her "washing oop" after dinner on an evening when she was about +to depart FOREVER--or anyhow until Mr. Freddie came for her again--was +a tremendous sight. Especially on an evening when at the highest +moment of her justifiable wrath Mr. Freddie would appear and +nonchalantly suggest a "few eats for some chaps who'd dropped in" as +casually as though Janet were not already on the verge of explosion. +Of course she would prepare the lunch, stabbing the bread-saw +viciously into the defenseless loaf and muttering dark things as she +assembled something she called "old doves" on a big Sheffield platter. +Janet couldn't cook at all but she could arrange things as beautifully +as her ancestors did--and they had been a race of public park +gardeners! There wasn't anything she couldn't do with some parsley, a +can of sardines and the cheese that was left from dinner. And then she +would wait grimly for the platter. Not for anything, even though she +were leaving FOREVER, would Janet let the remnants remain to stain +that sacred platter. Besides if she waited she always had a fine +chance to growl whimpering things about what an hour it was for a +decent widow woman to be a-walkin' the roads and to agree, feebly, oh +very feebly, that maybe Mr. Freddie was right, that it wouldn't hurt +the chauffeur to drive her back to her tiny flat. + +This particular evening Janet had been speaking her mind so freely +that the new dining-room girl had fled absolutely dazed by Janet's +dark threat that, Mr. Peter or no Mr. Peter, she, Janet MacGregor, +would never let her shadow rest again on the Alden walls. She would +tell Mr. Freddie that, she would let him understand that she didn't +have to take Miss' Alden's lip, that she, at least, wasn't married to +her, that she had some spirit left even if she was a widow woman. And +that she wasn't dependent on the Aldens nor anybody else. That she was +going to quit service of any kind--day of week or month. She had a +grand chance to open a window-cleaning emporium. She could get the +ladders and harnesses and chamois scrubs for almost nothing from the +widow of a boss cleaner who had cleaned a twenty-second story window +without the aid of one of his own reliable harnesses. She didn't care +so much for her flat anyhow. She was going to find a basement, she +was, with a long hall to keep the ladders in and a sunny front room +for her to live in and put her sign in the window. But with the Aldens +she was through--unless, of course, Mr. Freddie wanted to give her a +window-cleaning contract. + +She had been loitering near the pantry door shamelessly eavesdropping +during Dudley Hamilt's song because she hoped that meant the gentlemen +would be going and that she could air her grievances while Mr. Freddie +smoked and chuckled at her grumbling. So that when Mr. Freddie called +for Miss Grant, Janet was on the stairs a good three seconds before +that professionally calm person appeared. + +Janet sat on the landing window seat and cuddled Felicia in her thin +arms, crooning over her like a setting hen. + +"There, there--don't ye mind her--" she lifted glum eyes to Mr. +Freddie as she soothed the sobbing woman, "It's this that Miss' +Freddie's tantrums brings the help to! Many a time have I masel' felt +like givin' way the way this poor soul is givin' way. It's on'y ma +fierce pride that saves me--don't ye cry over Miss' Freddie's way o' +speakin'--" + +"It wasn't Mrs. Freddie, it wasn't anybody--" Felicia lifted her +streaming eyes from Janet's spare bosom. She was deeply chagrined that +the group hovering on the stairway could see her tears. "It was just +that--I was tired--that Uncle Peter's room was rather hot--that I +liked to hear the man sing--I'm vairee well--" Her drawling "vairee" +sounded anything but well, it was almost a sob in itself. "Truly +vairee well--" + +She was still "very well" a few moments later when she and Janet +settled themselves in the luxurious car. They were the oddest pair. +Janet's bonnet and shawl were as battered as Felicia's garb; exhausted +as she was Felicia found herself whimsically wondering how she'd tell +herself from Janet when it was time to get out. Felicia's tears had +dissolved in little smothered hysterical sniffs. She was laughing at +Janet's scolding because the seamstress had refused to take what Mr. +Freddie had tried to give her just as they were stepping into the car. + +"It's worth ony money to Mr. Freddie to have Mr. Peter snatch a bit of +contentment from life--and Mr. Freddie is that prodigal with money +that if you don't take it of him he'll hand it to the next one--" + +"But I can't take money for playing--chess is only playing, its only +for work we should take money." + +Janet snorted. She talked volubly in her rich broad Scotch. Agitated +as she was, Felicia's own lips were mouthing these strange new sounds, +she was sure she could get the gutteral A, she wasn't sure of the +burry R. She couldn't heed at all what Janet was saying, indeed she +couldn't listen intelligently, because her tired ears were still +filled with the glorious harmonies of Dudley Hamilt's unfinished song. +When she shut her eyes she could see his tall figure swinging up the +stairs--she was trying to convince herself that she was really glad +that he hadn't recognized her, when the car stopped before her +darkened house. Janet got out first, haughtily dismissing the +chauffeur with the assurance that she could walk the four blocks over +to her own house and she'd not leave a clean car in such a dirty +street as Montrose Place. + +Dulcie was waiting on the old balcony. Babiche trotted ahead of her +when she opened the door, in ecstacy at Felicia's home coming. Dulcie +set her flaring candle carefully on the newel post and eyed Janet. + +"It's Janet MacGregor with me, Dulcie. She's a widow woman. This is +Dulcie Dierckx, Janet, you'll like Dulcie--" She had Babiche in her +arms now, and was leaning wearily against the balustrade, "Janet was +good to bring me home--I was a silly fool--I cried, Dulcie--" + +Janet was peering curiously into the empty house. + +"Is onybody livin' here?" she demanded. "I thought I saw them all +movin' out--I heard the building was comin' down to make room for +lofts." + +Dulcie answered that it wasn't, holding the door open as a tactful +hint that she'd better go. But Janet had no intention of leaving. She +had a woman's curiosity about a vacant house, and she was frankly +looking things over, craning her neck to glance down the murky +hallway. + +"Would you think the basement might be to let to a decent body? It's +no worth much, so old and all but I know a body as might conseeder +it." Impractical as the "beastly step-aunt" had proclaimed her to be +Dulcie grasped Janet's thin arm. + +"How much would you pay?" + +"Is it your hous'?" + +"It's Miss Day's--" Dulcie nodded toward Felicia. "She's just been +thinking she might rent part of it. Of course its altogether too large +for her." + +"If she's livin' here where's her furnishings?" demanded Janet +cannily. + +Felicia sat down on a stair. She motioned but the others remained +standing, their lean figures casting grotesque shadows in the +flickering light of the candle. + +"This is the pattern of it," the little seamstress explained. "It's my +house, Janet MacGregor, only it's dirty because while I was gone +building my garden, some dirty filthy heathen came to live here. But +now I'm home His Honor made them all go away. And as soon as I have +earned enough money to pay the taxes and other things I shall make the +house lovely again. The furniture is in a place called storage. I +think I have to pay them something before I get my things, don't I, +Dulcie?" + +"What's the matter o' the storage bills?" demanded Janet her eyes +gleaming. + +Dulcie answered her, her sharp slangy syllables falling incisively +after Felicia's low drawl. + +"I don't know that it's any of your business but they amount to about +two hundred dollars. I know what you're thinking, that with the +furniture we could open a rooming house. I've been thinking that +myself while Miss Day was gone. I've experience you know, my beastly +step-aunt does make a good thing of it. So if you wanted to rent the +basement and had some furniture of your own Miss Day might consider +it." + +Janet's thin arms rested akimbo. She nodded. + +"If you've lodgings to let you've got to have some one to keep 'em +tidy. There's a good bit o' money there for an able body. If the +furnishings is what she ree-presents and you'd conseeder takin' me in +on shares--I might conseeder--" + +"Consider what?" gasped Dulcie. + +"Conseeder advancing for the storage of the furnishings--with the +furnishings as security o' course. And doin' some cleanin' toward the +matter o' what ma rent would be. Mind I'm no sayin' I would until I +see the furnishings. I'm on'y conseederin'--I'll have the matter o' +some ladders--" she peered again down the dark hallway, "and I'd want +a neat ticket in the window--" + +At midnight, by the embers of their dying fire, Felicia lay with +Dulcie's rug about her, plaintively pretending from the feel of the +chair, that she was the young Felice of those long years ago, +journeying toward the beloved House in the Woods. It was an easy +pretense for she could glimpse the dark waters of the bay and the +silent ships drifting on the tide. A spring fog seeped through the +open windows and she was quite as miserable as she had been on that +memorable trip. Beside her in her own chair, Dulcie talked and talked, +a thousand details that Felicia's tired wits could not follow. It did +not seem at all a miracle to her that she had found Janet. She +accepted her with the simplicity with which she accepted any one who +came into her life. + +"The garden is a little old pippin," Dulcie boasted. "We can make that +all O. K. in a day or so, but the house did stump me! Janet MacGregor +is an angel sent straight from heaven. If I ever get a commish' to +sculpt an angel I shall use Janet MacGregor for my model, little Miss +By-the-Day," she sighed drowsily, "your middle name must be Luck." + +"My middle name is Trenton," answered Felicia literally. "Dulcie, I am +going to tell you something. Something you must remember. When our +little garden is lovely again, if any one--ever--kisses--you out there +and you love him--don't let any one take you away from him. Because it +might be too long afterward that you come back--you might be old like +Grandy and Piqueur--so that he wouldn't know you when he saw you. He +wouldn't know that you were the--Girl,--" + +Something in the level flatness of her tones almost broke the Sculptor +Girl's heart. She reached out her hand and caught Felicia's and +gripped it hard. She did not say much but what she said Felicia found +strangely comforting. + +"Why--" her reply was the breathless reply of discovery, "I hadn't +noticed till now--_how young your hands are!"_ + +They awoke to the dazzling wonder of the new day, a bit stiff from +their unaccustomed couches but exuberant over the adventure. Almost +before they had finished their simple breakfast the excited Janet +MacGregor appeared. + +It was Dulcie Dierckx, impractical Dulcie Dierckx, who took charge. +She was a very different person from the hysterical girl that Felicia +had brought home with her two days before. + +"You'd better go to your by-the-day." Dulcie was almost saucy. +"Babiche and I will stay and guard the fort. I'll show Janet all the +dirt, I think there's enough to satisfy even her unholy craving--and +then if she still wants to go into the deal I can go to the storage +place. I know I could arrange it because I did it once for Aunt Jen; +it's a bore, it takes all kinds of time, you'd hate it and--" tears +threatened, "unless I'm doing something for my keep I can't stay." + +Little Miss Day agreed gratefully. She departed with tactful +discretion before Janet and Dulcie began their argument. Which was +some argument! But in the end they came to something like a feasible +plan and when they did--! Ah! if you could have seen what those two +accomplished that day! Each put the other on her mettle. They did +wonderful team work. Janet agreed readily enough when she saw the +massive furniture that she had ample security. Dulcie fairly browbeat +the storage manager, and between the two of them they actually +arranged for a small van load of furniture to be delivered at Montrose +Place before dark. As for the rest of it, Dulcie had a wrist-watch, +that for all we know is still reposing in the dusty pawnbroker's at +which she cheerfully hocked it. She'd always wondered why she had it +and I don't believe she ever remembered to go back for it. And Janet +had a nephew, a cross-eyed nephew, who was an odd-job man. Can't you +see Dulcie buying the bags of creamy kalsomine and the brushes and +Janet packing up her pails and scrubbing things? + +There never was such a polishing, such a mopping, such a scrubbing +such a--whisper!--fumigating--since the old house had been built! +They'd sense enough not to try too much. They confined their efforts +to the nursery, Janet's basement room and Mademoiselle's old quarters. +Dulcie knew she mustn't touch the shepherdesses there. Felice had told +her about the battle royal with the sponge, but in the nursery--well, +the crossy-eyed nephew couldn't work fast enough to suit Dulcie. She +feverishly grabbed a brush herself and slashed about delightedly in +kalsomine. Janet bossed the nephew and Dulcie, Dulcie bossed Janet and +the nephew, the nephew nearly uncrossed his eyes from trying to follow +all the instructions the two shouted at him. + +At quarter after six when Miss By-the-Day climbed slowly up the +stairs, reaching out delightedly for Babiche, who had been sleeping in +the top-most niche of the stair, two tired and aching women flung open +the door of the nursery. They were smiling. Neither of them could +think of a thing to say, but a curious mingling of odors told their +story for them. The freshness of the clean, scarcely-dried, kalsomine, +the faint tinge of smoke from the bit of fire, the delicious soapy +cleanliness and a wholesome whiff of barley broth floated out into the +dusty hallway to the little person on the stairs. She looked through +the doorway and saw clean walls, creamy yellow; windows that +glistened, a glowing fire, a tiny table spread for two--Janet knew her +place!--Grandy's fat sofa under the dormer windows, the stately hall +table flat against the side wall, Maman's chaise-longue, the slender +chaise-longue with its flowered chintz cushions, beside the fire-- + +When Felicia saw that she reached out her arms and sighed contentedly, +rapturously-- + +"Oh! it's home--it's really home--" + +Who shall say which of them won the greater triumph in those mad April +days? Sometimes it seemed as though it must be the valiant Janet, who +fought with soap and brushes and won Gargantuan victories over squalor +and filth. Sometimes it seemed as though it were the belligerent +Dulcie, who bravely tried to forget that she had ever wept over "wet +mud" and wanted to die--die! Why, she couldn't live hard enough, the +days seemed so short! She threw herself heart and soul into the fray; +she grubbed in the bit of garden, she toiled upstairs and down with +the clumsy paint brushes. Whenever she lacked for pence she strode +forth to the art school where she had once been a pupil in the days +before "Uncle Al" had put her money into the disastrous plumbing +venture, and boldly demanded the right to pose at fifty cents an hour. +With the bravado born of her new grip on life she brazenly descended +on the "beastly Aunt Jen" and demanded and received her trunks and +personal trinkets. + +As for Felice, her victories were humbler--they were small, silent +victories over Self. In the long hours while she sat sewing she fought +out her little battle--the battle of hating uncongenial toil. It was +not easy, for she had an honest hatred of it. + +Not even the goal in sight could make her like being a "by-the-day." +Moreover as she grew wiser in the matter of reckoning she realized the +utter impossibility of actually earning, with her hands, the appalling +sum that she owed. She could only work on blindly from day to day, +hoping, hoping against hope that she would find the Portia Person. She +never gave that up. Long hours after her day's work was over she kept +following elusive trails that led nowhere. She would never admit +defeat in that respect. She would find him and she was sure that he +could solve the difficulties that beset her. + +Slowly she was evolving a philosophy of life. It began with a bitter +feeling that she had been cheated, that Grandy hadn't been fair to +her, to let her grow up so ignorant of life, so ignorant of the ways +to earn a living. But gradually she began to discover that neither +Grandy nor Mademoiselle nor Maman herself could have taught her to +live. + +"It's my stub, stub, stubborn way--" she chided herself, "I won't let +any one tell me--I think it's only when I work that I learn--Work! +that's the thing to learn with--it's like the 'Binnage'--the second +digging of the garden to make things grow--its not pleasant but after +all--it must be done." + +Next she found out that it wasn't enough to work--you must like to do +it! Janet now, she _liked_ to clean--and so she did it beautifully, did +it superlatively, whereas when Dulcie or Felice tried, it was only half +done. So Felice set herself to "like to" be a "by-the-day." + +And that was the time she discovered that to like to do anything you +must make it genuinely amusing. + +"We should be immensely gay when we're working, shouldn't we, Dulcie?" +she asked one evening when they leaned far out of the windows to watch +the ships in the harbor. "Think how gay the sailors are. I remember +one who whistled while he cleaned the deck--he did it very quickly, +much more quickly than the stupid boys who didn't whistle--I think +when I sew I shall whistle,--not aloud--" she laughed, "it would wake +folks' babies! But in my heart--" + +She watched Janet vigorously sweeping the area-way. + +"Look Dulcie, it's not the way that she does it that matters--you and +I brush as hard--but it's because it's Janet brushing--the broom acts +as though it were Janet instead of just a broom--isn't it delightful? +I shall have to make my needle me--and you shall--" + +They were silent. All had not been victory for poor Dulcie. There was +the model stand and the tools and the "wet mud," but the part of +Dulcie that had wanted to create seemed dead--it seemed to have died +back there that day when she had tried to die in "Aunt Jen's" house. +Morning after morning when Felice went away she would encourage her. +She would assure her that when she came back at night she would hear +Dulcie calling "It's begun." But alas, it never was--it was only by +keeping madly, tempestuously busy at other things that Dulcie endured +the nag of some of those April days. Sometimes she gave up entirely, +flung herself prostrate on the sofa under the dormer windows and wept +until she was no longer Dulcie, until she was merely a limp rag of a +human who wouldn't even speak to Felice, who actually cursed when +Janet tried to bring her soup. + +But somehow or other the three of them squeezed and bumped along, a +precarious existence really, which would have been utterly impossible +if it hadn't been for Janet. She it was, who held the purse strings. +She it was who cooked sad looking, unpalatable, but none the less +nourishing, stews and broths. You should have seen Janet during one of +those solemn conclaves with the young lawyer whom Justice Harlow had +assigned to the case. He was a frankly gloomy lawyer. He was sure they +were wasting time and money and energy in their attempt to make the +house habitable--he didn't believe it was possible, he didn't think +that even another thirty days extension of time could be procured and +as for the debts on the property, they looked to his impoverished +purse like the combined national debts of all the Americas. He was a +very young lawyer. He was sorry, he said he was sorry, protesting that +he was doing everything on earth he could do to help "The Case." He +always called the house "The Case." + +Janet called him back one night after the two younger women had left. +She informed him bluntly that she didn't think he was anything much of +a lawyer. He retorted hotly that he'd done everything any lawyer could +do. Janet eyed him cannily. + +"Where might ye be livin'? You're no married?" + +He admitted his single blessedness; he named his address; he on +further urging named his room rent. And Janet came back at him with a +practical ferocity that was magnificent. + +"If you're so keen on helping my little lady why are ye no livin' here +and paying her rent?" + +He murmured things about neighborhoods and slums and not being able to +afford to live in such a hole and appearances and other futile +excuses. But in the end he followed her meekly up the stairway and was +shown the glories of Grandy's old room. It was a huge cavern of a +room, a whale of a room, with a curtained alcove holding a stately +bed, with wide windows overlooking the bay and a low squatty chair +beside the fireplace. While he was looking Dulcie tripped down the +stairs and winked solemnly at Janet. And she too assailed him. He +hadn't an argument left when the two of them were through with him. He +felt like a henpecked Mormon husband; he was red with wrath at the +Sculptor Girl's cool bossiness; he loathed the very idea of living in +the same house with such a person. Especially when she told him +bluntly, that he'd have to go to Felice and beg to be taken in. +Felicia mustn't know that he'd been "influenced" she put it. + +In the end he capitulated, clambering up to the nursery and tapping +meekly on the door, stammering as he made his request. + +But he'd his reward straight with--the reward of her wide, sincere +smile. + +"How stupid I was not to offer it to you! Of course you must have +longed for it directly you saw it--oh, do you know I think you must +have felt it was just the place for a lawyer! Shall I tell you +something--" she was down the stairs, running like a girl to point out +the wonders of the room. "You see Grandy's father was a Judge and he +knew Louisa's uncle--It was Louisa's uncle who used to live in this +house and both those men used to sit in this room and talk and talk +and talk--Mademoiselle told me about it. You shall have Grandy's +father's picture over the fireplace. We shall bring it up from the +hall. It's a beautiful picture--you'll just admire him! And to think-- +we haven't unpacked the books, Grandy's father's books--" she smiled +over her shoulder at Dulcie as she always smiled when she quoted that +slangy young person, "That will be Some Law!" + +All the same he was young enough so that he apologized profusely to +his friends for having such a disreputable lodging, + +"Yep, I know it's a rookery and a rotten neighborhood, but I have +reasons--" he said it darkly as though he were plotting. He didn't yet +know that a very powerful reason was Dulcie. He was so busy hating +her, thinking up things to say back when she let her saucy, slangy +phrases loose at him that he didn't know how easily he was learning to +love the solemn heavy furniture that surrounded him, the bit of fire +in the grate on chilly evenings, and Dulcie herself, poking her head +in the door crying, + +"How is the majesty of the law? Would it mind lifting a ladder for a +poor woiking goil?" + +The day he knew that the house was home was the languorous spring day +when he stopped to stare at a bowl of strawberries in the niche +outside his door. Their purchase had driven Janet almost to drink. She +plainly told Felice they'd all end in the poorhouse. But Felice hadn't +minded, she had inscribed a card, on which in her spidery slanting +scrawl was written, + +"NOTICE TO LAWYERS AND SCULPTORS: HAVE SOME ON ME." + +"By gad!" he breathed, grinning, "she's coming on!" + +He didn't protest at Dulcie's demurely calling him "The Rumor," not +even when she added, "Because as a lawyer, you're a false alarm." + +He took his humble part in the gigantic house-cleaning. He opportunely +called to mind a chance acquaintance in the Street Cleaning +department, whereupon an ancient white wings was stationed in the +block. + +Of course the White Wings couldn't remove the dingy lace curtains and +the grimy lodgings signs from the disconsolate six houses across the +way; but he could and did do wonders to gutters and sidewalks. The +hordes that had inhabited the great house had really made most of the +noise, the "across the street" houses were fairly quiet. + +Spring did a lot. She draped new ivy over the dilapidated church and +rectory; she let the gray-green leaves of the wistaria flutter gaily +over the cornices; she touched with magic the old denuded stumps of +the trees of heaven and the back yard became a shaded retreat. +Sometimes at twilight when Felice came home, it seemed to her that the +long ago look of the street was creeping slowly back--perhaps, of +course, it was just that she was growing used to it or else it was the +tender light through the old willows that made the spirit of things +strangely young again. + +She always came home bubbling with adventure now. Dulcie would sit +shamelessly smoking a cigarette filched from the lawyer and listen by +the hour while little Miss By-the-Day imitated her employers and their +maid servants and their man servants and the strangers within their +gates. The two women would sit in the back yard on the old iron +benches, which Janet had found in the depths of the coal bin. The +lawyer would walk grandly about, and chuckle and chuckle while Felicia +pretended she was a very fat customer who was always going to begin +dieting after "Mrs. Poomsonby's bridge luncheon." And when Janet was +gone for her bit of walk--the dear soul liked to gossip with her old +neighbors four blocks over--Dulcie and the lawyer would laugh until +tears blinded them at Felicia pretending she was Janet. Oh, but she +was inimitable at that! + +Janet arguing with the fish man, Janet experimenting with the +telephone the lawyer had put in the hall, Janet simultaneously +polishing a window and singing. + +"Ouch--" Felicia would pull imaginary rheumatism through an imaginary +casement, "Oh weel--oh weel--to look at the du-urt! it's sickenin'! +weel-- + + You tak the high road + And I'll tak the low road + And I'll be in Scotland before ye, + Oh, I and my true luv shall never be-- + +oot of the way below there--summat is drapping--Th' De'il tak my bit +of soapie!-- + + 'On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.'" + +The folk who lived in the rear alley used to lean, sill-warming fashion +on their windows, the children shrilly whistling the chorus, the men +forgetting their pipes, the women sniffling as women do when they hear +old ballads, for of course once Felice had started "pretending" she +didn't stop. A moment after she'd been Janet she'd be Marthy, dear, +lean, grizzled old Marthy, dead these many years, singing, + + "In the gloaming + Oh, my darling, + Think not bitterly of me--" + +It never occurred to any of them, least of all Felice, how many, many +hours she spent "pretending." Two evenings a week at chess with Uncle +Peter--(thank heaven Dudley Hamilt came no more--!) Sunday afternoons +with the Wheezy's gentle old fellow sufferers, almost all the other +evenings in the garden. She was using ounce after ounce of her +precious strength, pouring out her self to the whole world around her, +making it laugh, making it weep, making it thrill, making it--work. + +She stopped one morning to see Justice Harlow. He stared at her as +though it were the first time he had ever seen her. She no longer wore +eccentric garb. Dulcie had divided with her. She had a simple hat and +a serge frock. She was shabby, to be sure, but it was no longer a +ridiculous shabbiness. She was pale and wan, even paler than when she +had first come to him but the timidity, the uncertainty, had gone. Her +eyes were deeper. They shone like jewels; the softened outlines of her +profile were thinner, clearer; her beautiful mouth had grown firm and +a bit of gray showed in her hair. She was altogether adorable, like a +wee wren after a stormy day. The stilted phrases were slipping away. +She spoke more alertly. Bits of Dulcie's lingo were creeping into her +speech. But she still answered with a literalness that took one's +breath away. + +"Now whadda ye know about that?" asked the Justice all unconscious +that he was colloquial. + +"I do not know anything about it," she said demurely, and added with +one of her casual references to the illustrious dead--she treated them +all as though they were contemporary--"I think Heloise might know what +to do. One of the things Abelard loved about her was that she always +knew what to do--she was vairee good at administrating, like Janet, +don't you think?" + +All the while she was filling her house--with gentle paupers! Think +you how Janet raged the day she brought home the most useless citizen +of all--the Poetry Girl. + +Felice had been sewing for two or three days for a dentist's wife, a +rather amusing job for she was stationed in an upstairs window that +let one look down two streets, and at the other window in the room the +dentist's white haired mother sat and gossiped softly about all the +persons who came. + +It was the dentist's mother who saw the Poetry Girl first, a thin +figure who walked uncertainly up and down the street, eyeing doctors' +signs. It was a regular streetful of doctors. + +"There's a poor thing that's lost her address," crooned Mrs. Miller, +"she does look sick. It's a tooth, too, see how she holds her hand to +her face, you can almost see the pain." + +Felice saw, that is she thought she saw. Of course no one could really +see such an ENORMOUS pain as the one that was sweeping the Poetry Girl +along. It was too big to see. + +It was something like this. Orange red, pale blue, E flat minor, +acrobatic, Ariel-like in its changes. Sometimes it made her careen +heavily toward the curb--that was the time it made her head seem big +and her feet very far away. Sometimes she could walk but she wanted to +scream, sometimes she felt like a volcano, a Vesuvius of shooting +pains, sometimes it hammered at her ears and she couldn't hear at all. +But one thing she remembered all the time, that she had exactly +twenty-seven cents in her purse. + +She was planning whether she'd better dash up to a door and act as +though she had an appointment and give a false address for the bill to +be sent or whether she'd better announce she hadn't any way to pay the +dentist and would he take his pay in poetry, or whether she'd just +shriek, "Stop it!" + +In the end her body decided for her. It just flopped down outside the +house where Felicia and Mrs. Miller were watching. + +The Poetry Girl was normally very sweet tempered but she wasn't at all +her usual self when she opened her eyes. She was in an operating chair +and she looked accusingly at the man beside her. + +"You shouldn't sprinkle me," she murmured reproachfully, "I'm wet +enough as it is and I've no rubbers;--" the faint blue shadows under +her eyes accused them all. Her thin hand tried to pat her rumpled +hair, "I do believe you've lost another hairpin for me--I'd only +three--" she was petulant, "And if you do pull it I can't pay you--" +she was defiant. "Not unless you need some poetry written. + +"Or a play. I can write a play. But I can't sell knit underwear or I +can't do general housework--I'm only--a toothache--Bobby Burns wrote +me--maybe you've read me--" + +Of course Felicia took her home with her,--that was foreordained from +the moment she saw her,--but she had a beautiful row getting her! The +Poetry Girl had a "stub, stub, stubborn way" too. She was suspicious, +she was wary. She said she didn't care a damn where she went but she +didn't want any one to take her there. The dentist agreed with her. He +took Felicia aside and told her it was his private opinion that the +girl was either drunk or on the verge of a nervous breakdown and he +thought the best thing to do would be to notify a police matron. In +short he was cool and practical. If there was anything Felicia Day +couldn't endure it was a Van Dyke beard on a cool and practical man. +She told the Sculptor Girl afterward that it took strength of mind not +to pull his silly beard off. + +She tucked her thimble in her pocket, folded her apron and asked, + +"Will you promise not to let her go till I get my hat?" + +"You can't manage her," said the dentist, "I tell you she's +irresponsible." + +"So am I," confided Felicia serenely, "but I'll come back to-morrow +for the sewing. As soon as I get her in bed and Janet brings her some +soup she'll be perfectly all right--" + +But all the same it wasn't easy getting her home. It was a long walk. +Felicia hadn't two carfares and she had forgotten to ask the dentist +for money. To make bad matters worse a heavy down pour of rain +overtook them a good half mile from the house. Its cool splatter +seemed to bring the Poetry Girl to her senses. She laughed a bit. + +"What an idiot!" she exclaimed, "you must think me--my name is Blythe +Modder, and usually I'm sane. You see just before I went into that +dentist's I did such a fool thing. I bought some patent liniment and +put on my tooth and I didn't notice until afterward that it said +'external use only'--I was such an idiot--I think it went to my head-- +I'm very much better now." + +"Well, come along and get some dry clothes and tea anyhow, then you'll +be vairee all right." + +She left her with Janet while she ran for the dry clothes. She left +her on Janet's immaculate bed in Janet's atrocious dressing gown. Her +clothes she unceremoniously turned over to Janet to dry, leaving that +practical soul verbose with disgust. + +Felicia herself was drenched and she loved it. She was loth to strip +the damp clothes off; she felt like running miles and miles in the +rain. She was dreamily happy, dreamily miserable; she felt like the +day--all tears and smiles both. She dropped the outer garments to +floor and pulled her shoes and stockings off. Babiche sat up and +begged for a cracker. Felicia stooped, her damp hair clinging to her +beautiful forehead, the long scant chemise that had been Octavia's +falling loosely from her smooth shoulders. + +"Poor Babiche," she crooned, "When your mistress does come in--" So +intent was she on reaching for the cracker box that she lifted her +voice a bit. Dulcie, outside the door ready to tap on it, swung it +open just in time to glimpse the charming posture. + +Felicia blushed like a sixteen year old. She reached for her dressing +gown and pulled it toward her. + +But Dulcie Dierckx, slamming the door behind her, leaned against the +panels fairly devouring Felicia with her eyes. + +"Oh! Oh!" she cried in absolute ecstacy; "Oh, Pandora! Pandora! don't +move! How could I have been so stupid not to have seen you before! Oh, +please drop the coat! Oh! Oh! you adorable--you beautiful person--you +little old peach!" + +Felicia laughed. Laughed her soft, breathless laugh and drew the gown +closer. + +"You--you're rather embarrassing--" she sighed, "Though of course," +her eyes danced mischievously, "my knees and my ankles and my insteps +are vairee nice indeed--I got them all from Louisa, Margot says--and +my hands--" she stretched one out--"They're Grandmother Trenton's--and +I think I have nice ears--but the rest of me--" she shrugged, "The +rest of me won't do at all--my mouth is too big and--no, I wouldn't be +at all your Pandora--it's dark here--that's why you thought you saw +her--" + +"I saw her," insisted the Sculptor Girl stubbornly. "And you'd be a +brute not to help me--I--look here," she lied casually, "I didn't tell +you but I've managed a bit of money--I'm not asking you to pose for +nothing--I can pay you more than you earn at your sewing--" + +"Oh, money," she stammered. "I didn't think about money--Sculptor +Girl--how could you--" + +"Taxes," ejaculated the Sculptor Girl bluntly. "Interest! You can't +forget 'em or we'll all be back in the gutter you know--So that's +settled--to-morrow morning at nine--I'll have a good fire--you won't +mind awfully, will you, if I hang wet cheese cloth around you--?" + +She was trying to keep the excitement out of her voice but her eyes +were sparkling. She no longer saw Felicia, she only saw Pandora--the +Pandora of her dreams! + +But all the same, after she'd lighted her cigarette in her own room +she drew a long breath and pottered about her few possessions until +she found something pawnable. + +In the shop she bargained coolly enough with the pawn-broker, pocketed +the money she fought for and as she was leaving stopped to gaze +casually at the motley array of things in the dusty case. She stared +unbelievingly at a quaint mahogany box, warily priced two or three +other things and finally asked "how much for the damaged writing +case?" Ten minutes later she fled with it under her arm. It didn't +look like much. It was quite empty and it would make a nice box for +Pandora to be opening. But over and over her heart was pounding, + +"It's the same Bee on it that's on her brushes--it's the same Bee she +has said was on the silver--it's--oh, if it only could be hers!" + +She burst in upon the Poetry Girl (now warm and snug in some of +Dulcie's own garments) and Felicia sitting by the nursery fire. They +were having a friendly little party. Felicia introduced the two girls +with the affable hope they'd be nice neighbors. "Blythe's coming to +have the front room next as soon as Cross Eyes can pink-wash it--" Her +eyes glimpsed the box, she fairly ran for it, "That's Maman's," she +exclaimed, "How did you find it?" She hugged it delightedly; she +opened it--"Even its emptiness smells nice," she sighed. + +"Oughtn't there to be a secrud pocket in it, m'loidy? With the missing +will and the dagger he stabbed her with?" + +"Nothing like that," laughed Miss Day with one of her delicious +excursions into slang, "it was just for Maman's writing things--but +I'm _that_ proud to have it--" + +She was still holding the box when Janet brought up their dinner. +After the Poetry Girl had left, she settled herself for her scolding. +She knew that she was due for it. For naturally she had to confess +that she'd asked Miss Modder to come live in the house. + +"What's she paying?" demanded Janet. + +"A good bargain, I made. It's like this--she writes, you know, so she +doesn't get her money everyday as you and I do, Janet. She's more +like--well, Dulcie when she's sculpting. So I made a bargain with her +that she'd not pay her rent just now, that she'll pay later. She's to +pay some girl's rent for as long as she stays herself rent free, do +you see? As soon as she can she'll pay her own rent and she'll pay +another rent too, that's vairee business like, don't you think, +Dulcie?" + +Dulcie solemnly assured Janet she "couldn't beat it." She offered to +enter into a similar agreement. Janet couldn't get any sense out of +either of them. She retired baffled and defeated. + +"All the same," confessed Dulcie, "You've got to quit bringing home +losers, Miss Day. You ought to pick one winner just to square yourself +with Janet." + +Felicia promised. And, mirabile dictu, kept her word the very next +week. + +Of all the persons that her mistress brought home Janet really +approved of only that one. But that one, as she grudgingly admitted, +made up for the whole "shiftless crew." + +"She's Christian," she assured Felice solemnly, "A Christian." Which +was the more delightful from the fact that her sect was one that Janet +had hitherto scorned as "Irish Roman Catolic." But just to look at +Molly O'Reilly was to know you'd love her. Fat, oh, ridiculously fat, +in comparison with the rest of that skinny household--ruddy, glowingly +ruddy, beside that pale-faced "crew." Just by the law of contrasts +they adored her when they saw her--especially after they'd tasted her +heavenly food. + +Miss By-the-Day met her in the laundry of a great house where she'd +put in a day mending curtains and table linen. Not a bad sort of job +if one had a suitable spot to work in; but a laundry, a steamy, soapy, +wet-woolens-smelling laundry is not a comfortable place to sew. By +noon Felice wanted to indulge in one of Dulcie's weeps--she was so +nervous--when there entered, bearing a tray, Molly O'Reilly, with her +blue sleeves rolled over her dimpled elbows and her red hair lightly +dusted with flour. + +"Here's something to put inside you--" she called to the perspiring +colored woman who was washing and the tiny white person who was +laboriously darning thin net, "something to think on save work." She +stole a keen glance at the seamstress. "Yours goes on this bit of +table; Susy, put down the top of your toobs and get a stool." + +Ah, that food! Even Margot couldn't cook like Molly O'Reilly. Why, +Molly cooked as Janet scrubbed, as the Poetry Girl wrote, as the +Sculptor Girl modeled--by inspiration! There wasn't anything on that +tray she put before Felicia that hadn't been made from crumbs that +fell from the rich man's feast. Yet so cunningly had she warmed it, so +deftly had she flavored it, so daintily had she garnished it that it +seemed food ambrosial. Felicia let her fork slide into delectable +crust underneath which snuggled the tenderest chicken she'd ever +tasted in her life. Bits of carrots and celery and potatoes drifted +idly about a sea of creamy gravy--um--when you go to Montrose Place +order "Old Fashioned Chicken Pie." + +The artist who had created this delight sat easily against the laundry +sill and grumbled. + +"Coompany, coompany all hours. And niver a sound of them reaching the +kitchen. Meals from marning till night and me niver seeing them ate. +You'd think I'd be contint--the wages is so gr'rand, but honest, Susy, +I was happier doing gineral housework for brides at twenty per mont'-- +at least I'd a bit of heart put in me, I heard something savin' a +voice on the house 'phone sayin', + +"'Dinner fur eight at seven o'clock--' I'm going to quit. As soon as +iver I can find a partner. I'm going to open one of these stylish tea +rooms where's I can peep through the door and see me food bein' +appreciated--" + +Can't you almost hear Felicia talking with her, describing the kitchen +and the back yard and the dumb-waiter that goes up to Grandy's room +and stops at Maman's room and on up to the old nursery? Can't you see +Felicia triumphantly bringing Mollyhome to look it over? And can't you +almost hear the lovely Irish songs that Molly's mother taught her? And +Felicia pretending that she is Molly's mother? If you can't, why I'm +afraid you haven't really understood Felicia. + +So the days grew longer and sweeter and the little after-dinner group +in the garden grew bigger--think of the excitement of the day when the +lawyer brought home the architect and his timid wife! They came to +live in Maman's room, the room that Felice had intended to keep for +herself. But you'll know presently why she gave it to them. You +remember it was only one flight up. He was a young architect well able +to climb but Mrs. Architect couldn't. And he was a very new architect. +Felice said staunchly that she wouldn't think of having an old fat +successful architect around, that he'd be bored with all the small +jobs the house needed, but this obliging young one, now HE was quite +willing to work hours over where new bathrooms might go--if they ever +had any tub money, or where old lattices could be replaced--if they +ever had any lattice money. You see the idea was that he could pay his +room rent architecting, a "vairee practical" idea Felice assured +Janet. But Janet sniffed. + +Everybody brought somebody else. Janet didn't approve of any of them +but she did love them all! That was the unanswerable argument about +all these persons who flocked to the house in Montrose Place--they +were so lovable! Such buoyant souls, who hadn't quite gotten a grip on +life but were pathetically sure that once they did--! + +They triumphantly felt that the fact they'd been starving mostly, +helped to prove their genius. Though Felice could never see it that +way. Long after the rest were in bed she used to walk passionately up +and down Mademoiselle's tiny room. + +"They're all starlings singing that they can't get out--it's not fair +--not a bit right--they ought not to starve, they ought not to freeze. +And folks who say so are stupid! You can't grow roses like weeds--just +anywhere! And they're going to be the roses in the garden of world-- +they ought to be in the sun, they ought to be watched so carefully-- +why can't the stupid old world see it! But it doesn't. It just +tramples and chokes and freezes them until it's a wonder they evaire +do blossom at all. And di-_rectly_ they do--the world's surprised--huh-- +I should think it would be! It's not fair. It's all wrong. When I find +the Portia Person I shall do something, I shall buy the church next door +and I shall make a school. It shall be a school where you learn to do +one useful thing that will earn your bread and butter. And the rest of +the time--you shall dream." Babiche was a patient listener. But even +Babiche yawned at all the Utopian theories with which her mistress would +reform the world. + +Do you remember the chauffeur who promised Felice a "joy-ride"? Can't +you see his fatuous grin one day as he listened to a drawling young- +sounding voice over the telephone of Seeley's Boarding house, a voice +that he couldn't remember at all, demurely saying, + +"You said you'd give me a joy-ride sometime if I had a new bonnet--I +have. I really look like anybody else now. I do need that joy-ride +just now, could you come for me?" + +But can't you see that chauffeur's rueful smile when he reached the +address she gave him and saw a nurse bringing the palefaced Painter +Boy out the hospital door? Felice ran ahead of them, breathless with +achievement. + +"He is doing vairee nicely. His leg is better. It's only his spirit +that's rather drowned, so I thought if he had a joy-ride and we took +him home--" + +At least Janet found comfort from the fact that the Painter Boy was +the last pauper to be added to the list--there weren't any rooms or +beds for any more! But the house hummed with their activities, rang +with their arguments and theories, echoed with their laughter--and +sighed with their midnight tears. They were so young! So impatient! So +eager to set the river of life afire! + +Dinner time was a joy. They usually had dinner in the garden and +dinner was always THE DISH! Even with Janet's fingers on the purse +strings and Molly's capable hands in the mixing the slender funds +would not stretch to more than--THE DISH. It might be a huge Irish +stew, or something Molly called Dago Puddin' (there never was such +spaghetti as her Dago Puddin') or a gigantic pie made of pigeons that +had to cook all day to become edible. Sometimes Molly "slipped 'em +somethin'" that she claimed was left from her catering business, but +usually they ate only what their pooled funds could pay for and leaned +back content to listen while Felice "pretended" or scolded or +encouraged them; her leadership was utterly unconscious, her calm +assumption that she was a very old lady hypnotized them into thinking +she was. She made no rules or regulations. She frankly let them know +that perhaps they could live there a day or perhaps a century; that +the length of residence depended on the finding of the elusive, +untraceable Portia Person. They all searched ardently for him. They +all knew that when they "made good" they would have to find some +fellow who hadn't and help him. Already Octavia's motto was lettered +under her lovely portrait over the drawing-room fireplace in the +charming simulation of medieval script that the Poetry Girl loved to +make, + + "She would like you to be happy here. + You can't be truly happy if you are + making anyone else unhappy." + +The days swept by so fast, Felicia brave as she was, didn't dare count +them! Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, oh, it seemed as +though they surely must find the Portia Person now that they were all +looking! Yet each one in his heart generously hoped it would be +Felicia herself who found him. + +In spite of her high resolves to learn to "like to be a by-the-day" +she found some days impossible. + +She grew to hate Thursdays. Sometimes it seemed as though she couldn't +please anybody on Thursday. Thursday meant that she sewed in +households that suffered from a feverish complaint known as Maid's- +Day-Out. Thursdays always seemed to be associated with worse and more +hurried luncheons than other days--Thursdays she had to open doors and +answer telephones--she used to think sometimes she could have stood +all the other days if it hadn't been for Thursdays. + +One Thursday in particular stood out as a terrific day. To begin with +it rained. A drizzling, penetrating, gloomy kind of a rain that +brought her into the Woman's Exchange exceedingly moist, and seemed to +have permanently warped whatever courtesy time had left in the soul of +the Disagreeable Walnut. + +"--to Eighteen Willow Court--" grumbled the cross old woman sliding a +card with the address across the littered counter to Felice. + +One comfort was, Willow Court was not far and the "Eighteen" was +emblazoned in enormous gilt letters over an elaborate plate-glass +entrance. It was Felice's first apartment house experience. She walked +with humble awe through an enormous mirrored hallway lined with the +largest, dustiest, artificial foliage that ever disgraced vegetation. + +An intolerant colored boy, pompous in green-and-gilt livery eyed her +insolently. She stated her errand. + +"The help's entrance is on the side street," he informed her +impudently. "You turn right around and go right out where you just +came in and go around to the side where I tells you and go in there +and you tell Joe I sent you. If he hain't too busy maybe he'll run you +up on the freight elevator, but if he is you can walk. It's apartment +41, fourth floor, front." + +Ah, you should have seen Octavia's daughter, tired and little and +dripping and frumpy, lift her chin and look through and through that +impudent Senegambian! He confessed afterward she looked so like +somebody's high-toned ghost that it had sent the shivers down his +spine. And just when he was ready to hear the wrath that her eyes +threatened she turned abruptly and walked away so regally that he +found himself muttering, + +"I didn't notice she was such a high-stepping lady--" + +The service entrance and Joe and the freight elevator conquered, she +found herself face to face with new insolence, this time from a +frowsy maid who led her grudgingly into the living-room that stretched +across the front of the apartment. From ornate curtains a plump and +fretful woman emerged, + +"You're fifteen minutes late--she said she'd send some one at eight +o'clock--but come along, sew in the children's bedroom--" + +Felice followed through the whole untidy apartment into the narrow +cluttered room. It appeared that the children were not yet dressed nor +had their beds been put in order and they sat, two weedy pallid- +looking mites, in the midst of a tremendous heap of broken toys and +fought desperately for the possession of an eyeless, hairless carcass +of a doll. A sewing machine piled high with garments was in front of +the one broad window that opened on the gloomy whiteness of the court. +An overturned basket, from which oozed tangled spools and myriads of +buttons, lay on the floor in front of the machine. A stiff-backed gilt +chair stood beside it. + +"I cut out some pinafores yesterday," continued the fretful voice, "I +wish you would run up the seams of those on the machine--french-seam +them, please--and if I get time I'll show you how I want the collars-- +" + +Felicia stood, absurdly little beside her plump employer, and spoke +the first words she'd been given opportunity to utter, + +"Good morning, Madame," she said in her clear contralto, "I think you +do not understand. The Exchange should have told you that I am a +needle-woman--that I do only hand work--I do not understand sewing +machines--" + +"Not understand sewing machines!" shrilled the kimonoed one, "why +anybody with any sense at all can run a sewing machine--" + +Felicia smiled her wide ingenuous smile. + +"I am not any one at all--but it so happens that I cannot use a sewing +machine. Perhaps I can please you with my needle. Or, I can go home." +"You can't do anything of the kind. It's the maid's day out and I have +to go to a matinee and I'd counted on you to watch the children--" she +shook her head in exasperation. "Well, take off your hat, don't stand +there gawping. I suppose I'll have to put up with it. Do you know +enough to sew on buttons and mend stockings?" + +Felicia looked at her curiously for a moment. She couldn't think of +any flower or any vegetable that this strange creature was like, or +any weed for that matter, and it's very hard to keep the garden of a +day in order when strange unexpected things spring up in it. She took +off her hat and her dripping coat. She seated herself in the silly +chair and began to make something like order out of the mess of +crumpled things before her. + +Somehow or other the dreadful day limped along. The children howled +while they were dressed. Their mother by turns nagged or cajoled them +from one crying spell into another. The frowsy maid pulled the covers +untidily over the two little beds and half-heartedly picked up a few +of the toys and dumped them in a closet. Felicia's delicate fingers +guided her needle back and forth making exquisite darns and patches in +small petticoats and dresses. One grudging word of approval did her +plump and fretful employer allow her. + +"You certainly can sew, but you needn't bother to take such small +stitches--I wish you'd stop fussing with that and press my frock--" + +An ironing board added itself to the other confusion. Propped up +between the sewing machine and the uneven metal footboard of a child's +crib Felicia eyed it with misgiving. She almost laughed aloud. + +"Do you think you'd better risk it with me, Madame?" she asked. "I am +not what-you-call-a-blanchisseuse--I have never held a flat-iron--" +she was smiling because she was thinking of Grandy's inflexible order +"never let her hand be spread on any heavy object." + +She lived through My Lady Fretfulness's tirade at this appalling +ignorance. She again patiently explained that she was sorry The +Exchange had let Madame misunderstand. + +"I am only a needlewoman for hand work," she reiterated. "I know only +embroidery and mending and knitting and the beading of purses--as they +should have informed you--" + +The crisis was tided over by the frowsy maid being summoned to press +the frock while Felice corralled various hooks and eyes, mended a rip +in a stocking heel, helped to fasten the pressed frock around a +stiffly corseted person, breathed a patient "yes" to numerous +instructions about the children's lunch. She sighed with relief when +two o'clock heard the door bang after a second grand exit when a +caricatured edition of the mistress passed out in the form of "Sadie's +Thursday out." + +Not that things were exactly placid after those two disrupting +influences had fled to their pleasures. The rain dripped more +steadily, the pile of garments heaped upon the sewing machine never +seemed to grow less. The children ate the lunches that Felicia found +in the half tidied kitchen. The little woman herself carried a plate +of not unappetising scraps into the ornate mahogany dining-room, +rummaged for a knife and fork and sat down to eat, much to the +disapproval of the scraggly nine-year-old who informed her with +unconscious imitation of the mother's manner that "Mama doesn't allow +her servants to eat in here--" + +Followed a bumping, dragging, nerve-racking afternoon that made +Felicia long to shriek like the raucous-voiced peddler who had +disturbed her precious early morning sleep. By four o'clock things had +become unendurable: She viewed her squabbling charges with scorn. They +behaved no better nor no worse than "the-thousand-weeds-for-which-we- +have-no-name--" yet a spirit of fairness roused itself in Felicia's +unhappy thoughts. + +"After all, they're not to blame, these two uncared-for savages!" She +put down her needle and thimble, walked with a determination toward +the wee contestants in a never ending fight and put her hand on the +younger child's shoulder. The child jerked away. Felicia's hand went +out more firmly this time. + +"Let us go out of this room," she said coolly. "I do not think it is +possible for any one of us to be happy here any longer--" + +The children stared at her. This note of authority was something they +did not question. There was something in this wide-eyed pale little +seamstress' command that was unlike anything they had ever heard. They +followed Felicia meekly enough. They walked quietly while she moved to +the least covered and least ornate corner of the apartment--an alcove +with a bookcase and a flat writing table. + +"This," announced the older child, "won't do. It's Faddo's ONE CORNER +and he will not let it be touched." + +Felicia laughed. "Then there is but one thing for us to do," she +announced leading her small sheep behind her. "We shall have to go +back to that unhappy room and make ourselves ONE CORNER--" So back +they went and watched her fling open the window. They obeyed her +commands without murmuring for the next quarter of an hour. They +helped her smooth their lumpy beds. They helped her stack the wrecked +toys into an orderly heap. They helped her fold the heaps of mended +and unmended garments. And when it was done she sat down on the floor +on her knees as she had knelt so many times in her garden and smiled +at them. She drew a long breath. You must remember that she had never +known a child except that strange child: _herself_. She could only treat +them as she had treated the lost flowers in her garden. Or perhaps, she +thought, she could try treating them as she treated Babiche, but in +another thoughtful second--(during which she nearly lost their strangely +won attention)--she clapped her hands. Those scowls on their puckered +little foreheads were like Grandfather's in the old days when he had +been wrangling with Certain Legal Matters. She seemed to hear her +mother's happy voice: + +"It's not easy. But it's a game too. You see some one who is tired or +cross or worried and you think 'This isn't pleasant.' Maybe you play a +little on your lute, maybe you tell something droll that happened in +the kennel or the garden--" + +She drew another long breath, "Let's pretend--" she began in her low +contralto "let's pretend I have a little lute to make music for you." +She sunk back on a hassock and held her arms in position for playing a +lute. The children settled in crossed legged heaps and regarded her +solemnly. + +"I haven't really a lute of course, so I shall have to whistle instead +of playing the strings and I can't sing any words while I'm whistling +so I shall have to tell you the story before I make the song--the +first little song I'm going to do on my lute is about a bridge and how +the pretty ladies liked to dance across it." + +They pretended it with her rather timorously at first, but presently +they were singing "sur le pont d'Avignon." A door swung open and a +grizzled man in a dripping raincoat blocked the doorway. The children +looked around at him. + +"Go away, Papa," ordered the older one casually. "We are pretending." +He laughed. + +"And why, may I ask, shouldn't I be allowed to pretend with you?" + +"Will you let him pretend with us?" the child asked Felicia gravely. +And, Felicia looking at the tired face of the man in the doorway, +nodded. He sat down on the edge of the larger bed and if Felicia was +aware of him after that she didn't let him know it. Precious golden +moments of happiness began to drip into the little room as incessantly +as the silvery gray drops of the rain fell outside. + +"This," confided Felicia "is a story about a girl who wanted to write +a letter. She was a very pretty girl, a French girl. Do you understand +French? I don't very well. I didn't learn it when I was little like +you--so we'll tell it in English the way Margot--who is a nice fat, +comfortable woman who lives in the little house in the woods right +beside my big house in the woods--tells me. I'll whistle the gay tune +about the girl who is going to write the letter until you can sing it +with a tra-la-la-la so--and then while you make the music we'll +pretend I'm the girl who wants Peirrot to open his door so she can +write the letter by the moonlight because her candle had blown out. +Her fire was quite low--she was cold," the children shivered +sympathetically, "first we will do the tune--so." + +Felicia's beautiful lips closed. Remember that you could hardly see +her lips move when she whistled and remember how very beautiful her +whistle was! Such a gay little tune, that old, old tune, _Au Clair de la +Lune!_ The wide-eyed children watched her, humming as she motioned. The +tired man on the edge of the bed watched her, humming unconsciously as +the little song sang itself into his eager ears. Higher and sweeter and +faster the tripping tune came. Felice was clapping her slender hands to +give them the time and now the two children and their father were +singing it uproariously while Felice on her hassock gestured and spoke +the words. + +"--open your door, Peirrot--" Oh Margot! with your translation that +should not offend your atheistic master by telling his granddaughter +what _Dieu_ really means! The tired man, who'd known the song when he +was a boy, was already laughing at Margot's version. But when Felicia +came to "_Pour l'amour de Dieu_" and merrily cried out "For the love of +Mike" he caught up a pillow and hugged it as he howled his unholy glee. +The four of them shouted together, shouted youthfully, buoyantly, +savagely, not caring in the least at what they shouted. + +"Oh! Oh!" exulted Felice, "how _de_-liciously happy we are--" + +Under the noise of their merriment the outer door had opened and +closed; the tread of overshoes pattered quietly along the hall--she +stood in the doorway plump and puffing, her finery bundled clumsily +under her coat. She wasn't very pretty. It didn't seem as if she'd +ever been young, and it seemed as though she was the angriest woman in +the world. And her voice thin, soprano, nasal, rose above the joyous +shouting of the merry-makers. + +"You didn't know how to run the sewing machine!" she mocked the little +woman who was rising from the hassock, "you didn't know how to use the +flat-iron! You were much too fine to do the work you came to do! But +the minute my back is turned you sit there playing with my children--" +the anger was rising higher and higher now, "and flirting with my +husband--" The man arose. + +"Bertha!" he exclaimed. But even above the strident shrill of the +scolding and the abrupt command of the man's voice and the frightened +wail of the littlest girl, rose the cry of Felicia's own anger. Did I +say her employer was the angriest woman in the world? I was mistaken. +The angriest woman in the world was Felicia Day. + +Tiny in stature, absurdly dowdy she stood. She didn't raise her voice +after that first cry but its deep contralto seemed to penetrate +everywhere. All the petty insults that she had endured through all the +dreadful Thursdays seemed as nothing compared to the unjust assault of +this unfair person. + +"You'd better not talk any more," Felicia's clear voice interrupted +the angry tirade. "Because I'm not listening and I'm sure you don't +know yourself what you're saying. All day long I've been wondering +what I could pretend you were like. First I pretended you were a big +coarse zinnia. I don't like zinnias at all but some people do--they +are gay and bold. Part of the time I thought I'd pretend you were a +weed--a rather pretty weed that chokes flowers out if you don't watch +it--but you aren't even as much use as a weed--" + +Her employer gave a little scream. She stepped closer to her husband +and shook his arm a little. He was staring, as though hypnotized, at +Felice. + +"Stop her! Make her stop!" the woman screamed. "She's insulting me! +Make her stop!" + +He pulled himself together. + +"Of course you must stop!" he spoke sternly as though he were speaking +to a naughty child. "You must be out of your wits to talk that way! +You'd--you'd better go--" he ended tamely. + +"Much better," Felicia agreed. "But I'd much better go after I get +through telling her what I'm going to pretend she is! She's exactly +like the Black Blight--that horrid black thing that makes the green +leaves droop and the gay little flowers shrivel up--there's only one +thing to do to keep it from killing the whole garden--that's to burn +it out with coals!" + +"Stop that!" the man commanded sharply. + +Felicia coolly folded her arms. + +"I can't," she answered quietly, "not till I'm through. For I've +started now. Besides--" her eager words tumbled more gently now, "all +the morning through she told me about things I didn't know--things of +which I was ignorant. She thought it vairee dreadful that I did not +know how to work with a flat-iron--she thought it vairee stupid that I +could not manage the sewing machine--and I was ashamed because I did +not know vairee much--and I would be glad if she would tell me how to +do these things I do not know. Now, I know something that she does not +know--" she stepped very close to the amazed woman, "something I +think--she will like to hear about--" a cooing sweetness crept into +Felicia's tones, the naive earnestness, the gentle candor of her +appeal, silenced both the man and the woman. "She will like to hear +about the way to be a mother. I know exactly the way--it's like this-- +it isn't a bit like the way you do it--" her clear eyes looked +straight into those of the awed person before her. "The way you do it +is not at all pretty--not at all amusing--you shout and scold and fret +and 'don't--don't don't'--all the time! That's not the way to be a +mother!" Felicia's eyes grew tender, her hand touched the woman's hand +and patted it reassuringly. "I'll tell you the vairee best way to be a +mother--evairy morning you have some one make you vairee, vairee +pretty with a little lace cap and a rosy pillow--you must stay in your +bed and wait till your children come to see you and then you must +smile at them and speak vairee softly--this way, saying 'Go out in the +garden and be happy, my dears!' And when they come back to you at +twilight, oh so vairee happy--" her voice wavered, she was no longer +looking at them, she was looking far back across the years. She +shivered a little. + +"That's the time for you to say, 'Ah, Felicia, you look as though +you'd been vairee happy today--in your garden--" + +The man strode toward her eagerly. He put his hands on her heaving +shoulders and dragged her toward the light. + +"Who are you?" he demanded sharply, "tell me quickly, who are you?" + +And Felicia looked at him, still dazed, still drifting happily on the +flood of her beautiful memories. + +"Why, of course I know you--" she whispered gently, "I've been looking +everywhere to find you. You're my Portia Person--only the Portia part +of you is all quite lost--" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE LAST PRETENDING + + +The Portia Person and the young lawyer bent over a long table littered +with papers from the young lawyer's portfolio and the storeroom +trunks. They were sitting in the young lawyer's room, the room that +had been Grandy's and from the mantelpiece the portrait of Grandy's +father looked down upon them. His faintly ironical smile seemed to +mock their baffled efforts to disentangle the mystery. The tide wind +blew in softly from the river; the lights in the quaint old gas +fixtures flared waveringly, but the wide room was very still. + +In Grandy's "forty winks" leather chair by the fireside sat Felicia, +her hair smoothly parted, her tiny figure trig in one of the Sculptor +Girl's much mended frocks. She sat primly upright as she always sat, +but her sleek head bent itself charmingly--Felicia was knitting. She +was weaving a shawl for the Wheezy, a gay red shawl. The warm glow of +the wool cast a faint tinge of color upward over her pale cheeks; +whenever the Portia Person or the young lawyer asked her a question, +as they frequently did, she let her work rest in her lap and answered +quietly, her great eyes lifted hopefully. + +From the garden they could hear the faint rumble of men's voices, the +Architect and the Inventor and the Cartoonist and the Painter Boy and +the two new chaps, slender Syrians; (Felicia had found them a few days +before starving in a cellar where they were experimenting with +reproductions of antique pottery and had brought them and their +potter's wheels and their kiln home to live in the glassed-in room. It +was there in the autumn following that they perfected those wonderful +bronze and turquoise glaze ceramics that delighted the whole art +world)--from the nursery above came trailing the high sweet murmur of +the Sculptor Girl and the Poetry Girl and the Architect's wife and the +Milliner and the folk-dance teacher--in the kitchen Janet MacGregor +and Molly O'Reilly wrangled half-heartedly over religious differences +but each and every one of these inimitable persons cared not a whit +about the thing he or she pretended to be discussing. Each of them +wanted to scream, + +"What's happening? Why don't you say what you've found out? Why don't +you tell us something?" + +Eight o'clock, nine o'clock, ten o'clock--Molly O'Reilly couldn't +endure the suspense any longer. She cunningly stacked a tray with nut- +bread sandwiches and a pitcher of milk and strode bravely up the +stairs to Grandy's room. + +"Miss Day, darlint," she called through the half opened door, "I've +the matter of a nibble of food here--" + +Felicia did not put down the knitting, she merely lifted her head. + +"How sweet of you, Molly O'Reilly, come in--this is Mr. Ralph. Mr. +Ralph, I know you'll like Molly O'Reilly--" Molly put down the tray, +her hands were trembling so she couldn't trust them. + +"It's dying we all are wid curiosity, Mr. Portia Ralph. You should +have a heart--" her speech was bolder than her beseeching eyes, "what +wid the men all rarin' about the bit of garden, calling, 'Molly, isn't +she coming down?' and the girls, calling down the kitchen tube, 'Molly +aren't they through talking?' I'm fair getting nervous myself--we feel +like witches we're that flighty--" + +"The poor children!" Felicia sighed heavily. "Are you sure we couldn't +tell them anything?" she consulted the Portia Person anxiously. He was +biting absent-mindedly into the sandwich Molly had almost shoved into +his hand; he was eyeing the milk which that astute person was pouring +out for him. + +"Just a word, maybe," wheedled Molly. + +He smiled, a wry smile. + +"We're making some headway," he vouchsafed, "but of course we've only +begun really--" Molly took to herself no comfort from his casual tone. +She fixed an inquiring eye on the lawyer's despondent shoulders and +went out without another word. But back in the kitchen she thumped her +bread outrageously as she kneaded it, + +"Lawyers is the numbskull boys," she grumbled, "I belave none of them +know their business--" + +Half past ten o'clock, eleven o'clock, half past eleven--Felicia still +knitted, she could no longer see what she was knitting. Her eyes were +blurred with unshed tears. It wasn't for herself that she cared, it +was for all of the rest of them. From the stairway she could hear +Molly's voice comforting the Architect's wife as they helped her down +from the nursery to Maman's room, + +"Sure, they's no need to worry. Take a peep through the door at Miss +Felice. She's just knitting whilst they confab. Sure wid a couple o' +hundred papers alyin' there they couldn't get through in no hurry now, +could they?" + +She managed to wave her hand gaily as they passed but her heart beat +rebelliously. "I just can't, can't, can't give up their house--oh, +wherever could I put them all? I couldn't take them to the House in +the Woods. I couldn't let them go back--oh, oh, I can't lose their +house--" + +Out of the mass of things that the Portia Person had tried to make +clear to her Felicia could only grasp this; that the house was hers +but the taxes and interest and fines must all be paid if it were to +remain hers; that Certain Legal Matters had really taken everything +that had been left her from the Montrose estate; that he couldn't be +found; that there was some other property and money somewhere in +France; that the Portia Person had seen some of the papers concerning +it when he was a young lawyer, when Felice was a little girl; that +these papers had been put into Mademoiselle's hands for safe-keeping +when Maman went away; that Mademoiselle D'Ormy was to give them to +Felicia when Felicia was eighteen. But though they had ransacked every +paper that they could find in the old boxes and the cupboards they +could find nothing that had any bearing on the case. + +Of course there was more than a possibility that Felicia might find +something among Major Trenton's effects. The Portia Person was sure +that another thirty days' stay could be secured to enable Felicia to +go to the House in the Woods and see if she could find anything, but +she made it quite clear to them that the old man's mental condition +precluded the probability that he could be of any help to them. + +"It's not fair--it's not fair--" her tempestuous heart beat angrily, +"Always when I seem to find what I must have, it is as though I had +found nothing. This is worse than when I lost Dudley Hamilt--it's not +fair--" + +She spoke the last three words aloud in her intensity, so bitterly, +that the two men, packeting together the papers, turned quickly. + +"It's beastly," agreed the Portia Person inadequately, "but you +mustn't lose hope yet--" + +She caught at his glib words eagerly. + +"How silly of me! It was only the Tired part of me that spoke!" She +smiled. "I am like Dulcie's Pandora a little. I have opened the box +and let out all the troubles--but perhaps I haven't let out Hope-- +probably everything is as right as right can be--in some of Grandy's +papers--" + +She was grateful that she had this hope to hold out to her "children" +--she thought of them always now as children, these folk who dwelt +about her. Perhaps she caught that feeling from Molly, who mothered +every one of them. + +Of course the journey to the House in the Woods availed nothing. It +only brought Felicia back, graver and quieter than ever. The Majorhadn't +recognized her at all. He had merely called her Louisa and +forbade her to go to Paris, and Piqueur, Margot, Bele, and Zeb had +poured out their little troubles to her so that the trip had left her +despondent. + +She went back to her work dully; she stitched as daintily and +carefully as ever, but her whole spirit drooped. This was the end of +all her high hopes and great dreams,--that in less than a fortnight +she would have to give up the struggle. + +At least she was very busy during those warm April days. She had +amusing things to sew upon, little tarltan skirts for children who +were to appear in a huge charitable "May Day" entertainment. They were +of gay colors, those frills, like big holly-hocks, she thought as she +flung the finished things into a hamper. She helped to make other +costumes too, sitting with a score of seamstresses in the auditorium +of one of the churches. These women talked a great deal about the +entertainment. Naturally, each one of them talked only about the +person or the committee who had hired her. + +Yet engrossed in her anxieties for her household as she stitched and +stitched Felicia listened not at all to the chatter about her. It was +merely like the humming of the bees in her garden in the woods. She +heard it but heeded it not, because her heart was intent upon her +roses. + +Because she was aware that the House would soon be taken away from her +"children" she strove mightily to make these last days in it the most +wonderful days in the garden of their lives. She never let them see +that she feared. Just to hear her when she came home in the late +afternoon was like listening to a symphony of inspiration. It began at +the basement door. How she braced herself for it! How she advanced, +head up, lips smiling! + +A word to Janet, grumbling over her cleaning; a quick grasp of Molly's +warm hand--Molly was her hold on life in those discouraging days! +Molly, God bless her, would never admit defeat! Who fought out her +part in the battle! She made their slender funds nourish their hungry +bodies and she took nothing from Felicia but gave herself as royally +as her little lady poured out herself to the others. + +There was nothing sanctimonious about Felicia's handling of them. Like +the old woman in the shoe, she scolded them "roundly." The Sculptor +Girl still laughs over a never-to-be-forgotten-day, when Felice +drifted into the nursery, her arms outstretched in droll swimming +motions. + +"Dulcie Dierckx! How dare you let me find you weeping again! When +Pandora is almost here! I do declare you'll have to learn to swim and +so will all of us if you're going to drip tears regularly, every day +at five thirty--Molly says you're only hungry, nobody else is +snivelling all over the place--" + +"No, the lawyer c-c-cusses--" sobbed Dulcie. + +"Then learn to cuss!" admonished Felice, but her eyes twinkled and the +emotional Sculptor Girl's eyes twinkled back through her tears--all of +them were for Felice, if that despotic person had only known it. For +the young lawyer had been upstairs pouring out his despondent feelings +on Dulcie, + +"She has just about eight days more before she'll be dumped in the +gutter, for there's no possible way out--" + +A limp lot they were in the late afternoon, after they'd struggled all +day with their unruly Muses and Pegasuses! + +"Wouldn't it be droll," Felice asked Molly one day, "if I came home +too tired some night and mixed them all up! And told the Inventor I +thought his feeling was poetic and told Dulcie that she was getting a +wonderful color into her work and talked about soul to the +Cartoonist!" Sometimes it seemed to her that of all of them the +Architect, with his head bent over his drawings under his evening +lamp, typified the hopelessness of the whole scheme, as he wrought so +painstakingly at his detailed drawings for the re-construction of the +house, drawings that couldn't possibly ever be used! From some absurd +fragment he would dreamily reconstruct--his adventures filled the +house with nervous laughter. + +As on the night when he discovered, high above the doorway in the bare +old drawing-room, an ornate bit of copper grating that had escaped the +clutches of the dirty filthy heathen. Most of the quaint old hot-tair +registers--they had been wonderful bronze things--had been removed and +ugly modern ones that did not fit had been substituted. But this one +grating--a delightful oval affair whereon chubby Vestal Virgins lifted +delicate torches, had remained intact. The reason was plain enough, it +was almost impossible to dislodge it. Even with the lawyer and the +Cartoonist to help him, the enthusiastic Architect, balanced +dangerously on one of Janet's ladders, could scarcely pry it loose. It +was just after dinner. It had rained during the day so that the little +garden was too damp for the evening and the whole household lingered +idly in the bare drawing-room to tease the Architect. When the +register was finally loosened, showers of ancient dust descended. The +room echoed as with one mighty sneeze. Janet shrieked her dismay. + +"Now look at the du-urt!" she wailed, "It's fairly in loomps and +choonks!" + +The Cartoonist stopped with an heroic sneeze to lift one of the +"choonks." He dusted the bit of metal and bowed before Felicia. + +"Here is the key to the secret chamber--" but Felicia instead of +playing back with some mocking pretense as she usually did when any of +them made melodramatic speeches to her, clasped her hands. + +"Oh, how stupid I've been! That's the storeroom key! The one I threw +away the day I was angry at Mademoiselle D'Ormy! And it tinkled down, +down, down--" she was hurrying out of the room." All of us, now, we +can go up--the store-room will be fun and maybe--" They were +scrambling up the stairways, a laughing crew. "Bring something to +break wood with you," called Felice over her shoulder, "for those +shelves that Dulcie put over the door that we thought went into the +front room--it doesn't go there! Wasn't I stupid! That's the door into +the storeroom--it's the long narrow space between the two walls and it +had trunks and a bureau--" + +It still had them! The men folks pulled out the dusty boxes into the +immaculate neatness of the nursery floor and for the next two hours +they delved and delved through the forgotten treasures. The Poetry +Girl called it the "Night of a Thousand Hopes" but the Inventor +sardonically added at midnight "of Blasted Hopes--" + +The nursery looked like a New England attic when they had finished +mauling. Felice gave things away recklessly, whenever one of them +admired anything. + +How they all shouted at the Painter Boy when he triumphantly pulled +forth a sage green taffeta frock with long bell sleeves, voluminous +skirts and quaintly square-cut neck. + +"Look! all of us!" he shouted buoyantly as he limped across the room +to hold it against Felicia's shoulders, "here's her color!" + +"Put it on her!" begged the Architect's wife. In the end the women +dressed her in it while the men folk trooped down stairs to mess +Molly's speckless kitchen with their masculine ideas of how to make +lemonade. + +She curtsied to the Painter Boy good-humoredly. + +"I don't feel at all like me! I feel like Josepha or Louisa or whoever +she was who wore it--" she laughed. Her laughter was tremulous in +spite of her bravest efforts. They were all of them on the ragged edge +of tears. They'd hoped so that the storeroom would give the house back +to them! Only the Painter Boy seemed not to care. He waited, his eyes +gleaming, until after the others had trooped off to their own +quarters, each with his or her bit of the loot. He caught at the +hanging green sleeve. For that was the night the Painter Boy came into +his own. The night he knew that he was going to paint The Spirit of +Romance. + +"You're so paintable!" he begged, "I know it's rotten to ask you to +sit for me, you're so busy now with all of us on your mind and the +sewing and posing for Dulcie that you'll think you just can't--but oh, +Dulcie Dierckx--look at her! Isn't she paintable!" + +Dulcie agreed she was. + +Felicia shook her head. + +"It's only the frock, Nor'. I'll lend it to you, I can't quite give it +to you, I love it so--but you shall have a really model--we'll manage +somehow--and you shall paint the frock--that's what's paintable--" + +Of course in the end she didn't refuse him. She never refused them +anything she could possibly manage, but it was rather difficult to +find the time. She never knew exactly how she found it. + +It was in the "paintable" green dress that she "pretended" her way to +fame and it came about this way. Without actually realizing it she was +getting accustomed to a fairly large audience on the Sunday afternoons +when she whistled for the Wheezy's friends. They were so eager to hear +her and their chance visitors were so numerous that the Matron +arranged for her to do her "pretending" in the chapel hall at the +front of the Home. And it was there that an enthusiastic member of the +May Day committee chanced to hear her, one sunshiny April Day, an +enterprising member who bluntly asked Felicia Day if she wouldn't +"pretend" for the May Day program at the Academy of Music. It didn't +occur to Felicia to make excuses, especially when the committee member +explained things a bit. The only thing at which she balked at all was +when the energetic person murmured, "Name please?" + +"I'm not--anybody--" explained Felicia, "I'm not even sure myself who +I am--" + +"But we have to have a name to print on the program--" + +This was the first time that anybody who'd been asked to appear hadn't +eagerly supplied much information as to middle initials! + +"Vairee well," suggested Felicia, "we shall make up a name. I shall be +called Madame Folie--no, Mademoiselle Folly--will that suit? Then if +it has been a mistake to put me on your program that will be a small +joke, eh?" + +It looked very well indeed, "Vairee business-like"-- + +"Number 17--DIVERTISSEMENT--Mademoiselle Folly in PRETENSES" + +She didn't even bother to tell them about it at home. It seemed to her +as casual as the Sunday afternoons when she whistled for [her +accustomed audience of] the Wheezy and her friends. That is until the +hectic morning when she obeyed a summons to rehearsal in the empty, +auditorium--Felicia always says that the rehearsal was worse than May +Day night! So too were the behind-the-scenes confusions and the +nervous moments while the makeup artist dabbled her cheeks with rouge +and pencilled her eyes--_that_ left her limp with stage fright. + +After all, she thought as she waited her turn, "It's only for ten +minutes! And an encore if they like me!" + +The moment when she actually faced her first big audience--a tired and +fluttering and yawning audience, for two hours of Brooklyn amateur +talent will wilt even the most valiant listeners!--she had but one +thought, and that was--that there wasn't any pattern to an audience! + +Other thoughts raced like lightning. + +"But I must remember to smile. They are persons and I have to please +them, they're sounding rather fretty--" + +Perhaps you happened to see her when she stepped out on that vast +stage, looking tinier than she really was, with the lights shining on +her satin-smooth hair and white neck, with the coral comb and the +carved bracelets making bright spots of color. Do you remember how her +wide green skirts spread about her as she made her deep curtsy? Do you +remember her smile? Or were you rustling your program until you heard +that deep contralto voice of hers beginning with, + +"What I am going to do for you I shall have to explain a little." +There was a bald grouchy human in the front row, he honestly believed +she was talking just to him! He leaned forward. "I am going to do some +songs for you but I can't exactly sing--" The bald man grunted, he +considered that plain foolishness and it was! "But I can play this +lute a little--and I can whistle--" + +"Louder!" called the voices at the rear. + +She lifted her chin defiantly. + +"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Maybe some of them are deaf like the Wheezy's +friends, oh dear! How slowly I must speak!" she admonished herself in +her thoughts. Her knees were shaking. But her voice lifted itself a +bit; she enunciated carefully, + +"These are not new songs, they are just songs you know. So you'd +better not look at me while I do them. You'd better shut your eyes and +pretend--oh, I _do_ hope you're good at pretending--you must pretend +that you are seeing the first person you heard sing these songs for you +when you were little. The first one I heard, Marthy sang. Marthy was +lean and small and ra-ther old. She lived over our stable in the +cleanest rooms! With red geraniums in the windows!" + +Oh, do you remember the adorable way she took you into her confidence? +Do you remember how strangely familiar she seemed? + +"Marthy used to sing 'Cherry Ripe.' Do you know it?" she asked so +anxiously that one sympathetic soul murmured "yes" and hid her +confusion in a cough as Mademoiselle Folly began, + +"It's about a young man who thinks his sweetheart's lips are like big +ripe cherries, so he sings, + + "'Cherry Ripe, + Cherry Ripe, + Who will buy my cherries?'" + +She hummed the tune tentatively. She swung the narrow green ribbon of +the lute over her shoulders and her fingers touched the strings. And +then suddenly the soft flute-like trill of her wonderful whistle was +wafted out toward them. + +Ah, who can describe the miracle, the mystery whereby her simple songs +made them all feel young again! She was just a little seamstress, aged +twenty-seven, who had lived an unreal life of sentiment and dreams and +memories and they were just a sophisticated, tired, jaded audience. +Some of them twisted their lips and scoffed. Some of them weren't +especially moved by "Cherry Ripe," but the bald man in the front row +pattered his hands together before she was through bowing and noisily +told his neighbors, + +"Gee, that's the stuff. You can't beat the old stuff! S'lovely stuff--" +A few pioneers about him pattered too. It was enough to encourage +Felicia. She smiled. + +She was still frightened but her voice was firmer. "If you liked that +one, maybe you will like the song about Robin Adair. There was a young +woman a long time ago, who loved a man named Robin Adair. You see he +went on a journey, I imagine a long journey--" Ah, Felice! he'd gone +on a very long journey, that Robin Adair! A journey that a generation +of rag-times and turkey-trots and walkin'-dogs had almost obliterated. +Yet from the tone of her voice they suddenly were very sorry that +Robin had gone a journey. "So the young lady sang a song asking + + 'What's this dull town to me? + Robin's not here--' + +Like this it goes." + +This time she did not use the lute but put it down carefully and +folded her hands quietly together. Her own repose made it easy for her +listeners to rest until the last questioning trill had died away. The +applause was louder this time. Some of them were talking delightedly +and the rising murmur of their approval warmed her trembling heart. + +"Another! Another!" called her excitable bald friend. + +"It's vairee good of you to like them. Do you think you'd enjoy a +French one now? That is if it isn't ten minutes. They told me to do +this for ten minutes--" + +The intimate way she took them into her thoughts made even the most +sceptical of them lean back and smile. If they felt like questioning +the genuineness of her feeling it could only be explained on the +ground of consummate art and either way it was something they didn't +want to lose. + +"Margot taught me this one. It is about a forest. I heard it first +vairee early in the morning, the first morning I evaire did see a +forest. Pretend you can see it. It was spring before the leaves had +come but the tops of the trees were swaying and the branches had the +colors you see when you dream--and the wind was warm and sweet and +sighing. And on a maple tree a blackbird whistled--so--and in the +shining melted snow-pools the little green frogs made this kind of +noises--and down in the old stone stable two little new lambs were +crying--it was a wonderful spring! You must pretend you can see Margot +sitting in a gray stone doorway sorting seed in a little broken brown +basket. Margot is ra-ther brown herself, but she has gray hair and +black eyes and she's fat and she wears a blue dress, vairee old and +clean and faded and a big white apron. Her voice isn't pretty I'm +afraid, but her song is. Her song is the oldest song I've evaire +heard. There was a Frenchman, Maitre Guerdon, who made it a long time +ago. He was a fine gentleman with ruffles of lace on his sleeves and +he had a lute--perhaps like this--" she picked up hers again "and what +he says in his song is that he wants every shepherdess to hasten to +pleasure and to be vairee careful about time for Youth alone has time +to have fun with. Because, as he tells them, time slips through your +fingers like water and then you have nothing left but a sorry old sad +feeling. So the best thing that you and the shepherdesses can do is to +run around in the spring forests and spend all the time you can--" her +voice faltered "--loving--" + +The absurdity of the thing never struck them. Most of them couldn't +have endured a forest ten minutes. But she had them completely under +her spell and it suddenly seemed the most fascinating thing in this +world to be young and "--run around in a spring forest--loving--" + +Her melody began. It matched the dainty spirit of the words and I +think if Maitre Guedron, in that heaven where all music makers, good +men or bad, should go, could have heard her, he would have bowed his +admiration just to hear the tender graceful spirit that her softly +muted whistle gave his quaint old song. It was a spirit never lagging, +that tripped ahead of the faint strum of the lute strings. + +The plaudits were coming whole-heartedly now. Felicia adored them for +liking her--she leaned forward to catch what a man in the side box was +saying. Bolder than the rest, he coughed and let his desire overcome +his temerity as he cried out, + +"Do you know--er--'Ever of thee I am fondly dreaming'?" + +Felice came quite close to the footlights and peered at him, + +"Is it like this?" she hummed it over softly-- + +"That's the ticket," he nodded; "do you know the words?" + +She shrugged. + +"I just know it's about a person--who was thinking about some one he +used to see," she translated dreamily, "and he thinks he can hear her +voice and that cheers him up vairee much when he's feeling low +spirited and so it's like this--" She whistled it. + +After that they just shouted at her, as eager as children. She never +failed one of them--save once, when a gasping person demanded "After +the Ball." + +That _did_ puzzle her. + +"The ball," she echoed regretfully, "I think I don't know about it-- +what sort of a ball, was it, M'sieur--a little tennis ball?" + +But the puffy old lady who asked for "White Wings" was rewarded with +the gentlest smile-- + +"It is stupid of me, I think I never heard the words except those two +lines 'White wings they never grow weary--I'll think of my dearie--'" +and she finished the "Fly away home," with a charming gesture of her +little hands and a triumphant warbling of the tune. + +Can you wonder that they loved this amazing person who tugged their +hearts this way and that with ail the dear old songs that those they'd +loved best had once sung to them? Janet's crooning Scotch songs, +Molly's wistful Irish ballads, Margot's naughty French and Marthy's +sentimental loves, Grandy's English favorites too, it seemed as though +she could never give them enough of them--ten minutes! They'd have +kept her an hour if they could! She talked, she hummed, she played her +lute--but best of all she whistled for them because they liked her-- +little Mademoiselle Folly! + +Last of all, she stood very quietly and looked at them while they were +still laughing over something she'd picked up from Zeb, a ridiculous +scrap of New England, + +"Pretend I'm Eunice making the gol-_dern_est huckleberry pie and that +I'm singing, + + "'Once upon a time I had a feller + Way down in Maine. AND + He took me home under his umbreller--' + +"There is just one more I can do for you. I am a vairee little tired, +perhaps you are too. This song you have heard before tonight. I heard +this music playing it. Perhaps we can make them play it again. It was +Piqueur who told me this song. Piqueur is a vairee old gardener, who +once was a soldier. He fought in battle. He was hurt vairee much. His +head has nevaire been quite right since then. But some one taught him +to be a vairee good gardener and that made him forget how frightful +war had been. But in the spring, because spring makes all of us +remember when we were young, Piqueur would remember--war. He used to +tell me about it while we planted the garden. Early in the morning +when the sun was rising. And he would sing this song, in French of +course. It was Margot who told me what the words meant. You know them-- + + "Ye sons of France, awake to Glory! + Hark! Hark! what myriads bid you rise! + Your children, wives and grandsires hoary--" + +The violinist caught up his bow, the orchestra leader was on his feet. +Felicia was not smiling any more; her great eyes burned with +excitement; she saw Piqueur singing; she heard Piqueur trying to tell +her about war--she did not mute her whistle. She let it ring-- + +And after that they stood on their feet and whistled and sang and +cheered with her while she poured out her whole heart at them, gave +them her whole self until her tears blinded her and she turned and ran +away. To the blessed shelter of the wings where some one opened +comfortable arms and let her weep. + +Nor could her rapturous audience get so much as even a little glimpse +of her again. + +"Ladies and gentlemen!" called the chairman of the committee, "I beg +of you to be lenient. Mademoiselle Folly thanks you but she cannot +whistle any more tonight--she says--" he cleared his throat, "to thank +you--to tell you her lips and her heart are too much puckered up!" + +I think of all her audience perhaps the Portia Person was the happiest +and the proudest. She took him absolutely by surprise. He hadn't +remotely connected the Mademoiselle Folly of the program with his +shabby client, but it was he who took her back in triumph to her +"children" and let them understand something about what had happened +and it was he who protected her interests during the excitable days +that followed. It took more tact to manage this new Mademoiselle Folly +than to arrange matters with the strange persons who sought her out. +Mademoiselle Folly still measured the value of her services by the +same standards that had governed Little Miss By-the-Day's. She +couldn't understand at all why one should be paid what seemed to be +fabulous sums for a brief half hour of "pretending" that one loved, +when a whole day's work that one hated meant only two dollars. I think +if it hadn't been for the dire necessity of those last days before the +impending auction they could never have made her consent to do it for +money. Impossible mathematician that she was, she could see the +multiple of even the lowest salary that vaudeville managers offered, +meant hope that she could sometime pay the appalling sum total of the +debts on the house in Montrose Place; that is, if, as the young lawyer +pointed out, she could "keep things coming her way." Surely it seemed +during those first delightful weeks of her amazing vogue that she +could "keep them coming" forever! + +She was so flushed with enthusiasm, so joyous over these unexpected +opportunities! She was so earnest in her desire to give "for value +received"! + +Never for a moment did she rest on her laurels. In spite of vast +hoards of songs in her amazing memory she set herself very humbly to +finding more.--The Wheezy's friends helped her so joyously! Her +audiences helped her so artlessly! And the Poetry Girl fairly lived in +the library unearthing treasures for her! It was a wonderful, +wonderful month, that month of May! She whistled and sang and talked +and gestured her way into thousands of hearts, she smiled naively at +her audiences' delight in her. She constantly varied her methods. Some +of her happiest results were merely lucky accidents--as on the day +when Babiche followed her out on the stage and sat at attention like a +trick dog. After that Babiche appeared at all the children's matinees +and oh, what a delicious lot of animal and children songs the Poetry +Girl discovered! And did you ever see her do "Battledore and +Shuttlecock" to minuet time? + +But it was Uncle Peter, with whom she still played chess whenever she +could steal the time, who found out in some mysterious way about the +house and its difficulties and it was Uncle Peter, (who wasn't half +dead, not by a long shot) who sat up and forgot his ailments and held +long conferences with the young lawyer and the Portia Person. And it +was Uncle Peter whose own generous gift, coupled with what he coerced +from his friends, who made it possible for the burden of taxes and +interests on that great house to be lifted. It was "vairee +businesslike," the same sort of "businesslike" that Felice herself had +been when she made the bargain with the Poetry Girl to pay double rent +if she should ever be earning anything. The stockholders in the new +corporation that took over the house were to sell their stock back at +par whenever the house should be put on a paying basis, or whenever +Miss Day should have earned enough to pay them back. She was immensely +pleased with that idea. She was sure that even though it should take +her as long as it had to rebuild the garden of the House in the Woods +that she would some day be able to do it. + +The "children" revelled in her reflected glory. They all of them loved +knowing that their little Miss-By-the-Day was the mysterious +Mademoiselle Folly who'd set the whole town talking. + +The Sculptor Girl fairly chortled her glee when she came back from +Manhattan after a walk down the avenue and brought an amusing census +of the shops that sold "Mademoiselle Folly" novelties! + +"Lordy," she related to the Architect's wife, who couldn't even go +into the garden these days, "When I think of it I could shout! The toy +shops have battledores and shuttlecocks! They're actually selling lace +mits like Louisa's and coral combs like Octavia's and the hair +dressers' shops have windows full of silly wax-headed figures with +their hairs all neatly coiffed in the middles and knots tucked down +behind like Felice--and the darling doesn't even know it!" + +How could she? She never had time for walks down the avenue--it was +hard enough to find time for "pretending" these busy days when the +carpenters and painters and masons and plumbers descended upon the +house to carry out the architect's beautiful plans--the house fairly +hummed with activity. + +Yet there came a day when the house was still when all the workmen +were sent away, when all that dwelt in the house walked restlessly in +the garden; a night when Mademoiselle Folly hurried back from her +audience with her little fists clinched and when she made Molly come +sit and hold her hand. That was the night when in Maman's room the +architect's feeble wife fought out her battle; a night that seemed +interminable. But early in the morning, after all of them had gone to +bed save the doctors and the nurses and Felice, Molly came running up +to Mademoiselle D'Ormy's room with the honest tears coursing down her +cheeks. + +"It's you she wants, darlint, it's you they says can see her--it's a +little girl she has--" and Felicia went down the stairway with her +gift under her arms, the gift she had found that night when they +ransacked the treasures of the storeroom and that she had hidden +because she knew directly she peeped at it, what she would do with it. + +She knelt by the old sleighback bed and took a thin hand in hers. She +smiled into the proud and happy eyes. + +"I brought something for her, Mary, I brought her first present. It's +vairee old, it is--clothes--I found them first when I was ra-_ther_ +little myself." She talked softly, her slender fingers busied themselves +with the old leather case. She held up the beautiful wee garments. Even +by the dim bedside light the Architect's wife could glimpse their +fragile loveliness. She protested faintly, + +"You shouldn't give them away--they're so old they're sacred." + +"I know they are but I want her to have them. They were Josepha's +first clothes, I found that out from Mademoiselle D'Ormy." + +"I mustn't take them--" + +Felicia laughed softly. + +"The nicest part of our all being poor together is that we can give +each other anything we have. And I'm proud, proud, proud I have these +for her. Isn't she--little--" she touched the tiny cheek longingly, +"Oh, Mary, I wish she was mine--she makes me understand something. +It's this. About the Poetry Girl and the Sculptor Girl and you and me. +It's that women aren't half so happy making statues and poems as they +are making--gardens--and babies--" + +The Architect brought the leather case back to her door as soon as +daylight came. He thrust it into her hands as she stood, with her +beautiful old dressing gown about her. What they said to each other +neither of them remembers. But after he was gone and she had spread +out the opened case before her Felicia Day reverently unfolded the +papers that had been hidden. They were such yellowed, faded papers +with their ancient seals! Those papers that Louisa had found in Madam +Folly's boudoir, those papers that Louisa had taken to Paris! Those +papers that Octavia had tucked away, smiling to think how Felicia +would smile when she found them. Indeed it was Octavia's letter that +made everything clear. + +Dear Daughter: + +Now that you are old enough to understand and Grandy is himself old +enough to be more patient I think perhaps you will be the one who will +be able to make him forgive Louisa for going to France. He would never +let me tell him; I tried to but he wouldn't listen because he thought +it was going to be painful; he would only say that the past was over +and done with and then he would walk away from me. + +We've had such an unfortunate habit, Felice! We women of this family! +We would run away with the men we loved! The first of us to run away +was Prudence Langhorne who ran away with an old Frenchman who came to +America to try to forget the miserable troubles of his country. + +There were many reasons, some of them political, why she couldn't +explain who this Frenchman was--and besides I think she was so happy +and so busy that she never minded what people thought. She was a +little careless about explaining things until it was too late--for she +died and left a daughter, Josepha, who never knew that her mother had +been really and truly married to her father and who was bitter and +unhappy because there was a deal of gossip about her. This Josepha was +not asked about whom she wanted to marry. She was just taken to France +and married to a man whom she never learned to love and sometimes +people taunted her so that after he died she took just one of his +names and came back to America with her daughter Louisa and built this +house in Montrose Place. She did not think it was time for Louisa to +marry. She meant to arrange things carefully when it was--but Louisa +was like the rest of us--she fell in love when she was still very +young and she ran away with her man--(that was Grandy) and she +promised him that she'd always like to be poor with him. She would +have, of course, only after her mother died she learned there was a +great deal of money that belonged to us and when she knew that I was +coming she wanted things for me. So she made a silly mistake. She kept +everything a secret from Grandy; she used to go to the lawyer's when +he didn't know about it and then some one told Grandy about her going +and Grandy misunderstood--he thought she loved her lawyer. So they +quarreled and quarreled, for Louisa was furious because he mistrusted +her and in the end she was so angry that she sailed away for France +with her lawyer. She couldn't make Grandy believe that it was true +that she really had business in Paris; he thought it was only an +excuse of the lawyer's to take her away. So Grandy went away to war +and Louisa stayed in France and that's where I was born and that's +where I lived until Louisa died and the Major came for me. + +Sometime I hope that Grandy will take you to France and let you live a +little while at least in that house. I loved it so--sometimes I think +I loved it even more than I loved the House in the Woods or this +house. + +It was in this house that your father learned to love me--it was in +this house here that I waited a long time hoping that the Major would +let us marry. You see Louisa, my mother, did leave me these houses and +a great deal of money, some of it in France, and Grandy thought your +father wanted to get it, so in the end, after we had all been unhappy +and wasted many precious years I did like the rest of them--I ran +away. + +You must not blame Grandy too much. I know that Louisa and her mother +Josepha were as much to blame as he. + +Felix and I were not patient. We all of us made many, many mistakes. +They look so silly now that we are older but they seemed so necessary +when they happened. + +When we knew you were coming, your father and I, we used to laugh +because you see, I had so many names and a title too--and I'd run away +from everything just to be with Felix and I'd no way to get at what I +owned without going back to Grandy. Besides it seemed to me that what +I owned had made all of us unhappy. So we used to say all we'd give +you would be the names and the titles but we'd keep you away from the +rest of it--and that we were glad the days of princesses were gone for +both our countries, America and France. + +But I think that when the time comes, for you to marry you will like +to have all these papers that tell you who you are and I think too, +that if you are wise, having the houses and the money that belongs to +you cannot make you unhappy--I like to think you will find some way to +be happier than the rest of us have been, for you have something that +none of us had, something that was your legacy from your father. He +was very poor, Felice, but everyone loved him because he never let +himself be morose or unhappy. He taught me that you can't be happy +yourself if you are making anyone else unhappy. He said the delightful +thing about not possessing much was that one could be prodigal and +extravagant about being happy. He said he had no obligation in this +world except to be happy. + +He made a game of everything he did whether it was something he liked +to do or something he hated to do. Toward the end he had to do many +things he hated, that he wasn't strong enough to do. But he did them +gaily. He made everyone around him laugh as he did. + +When the time comes for you to go out of this world you will have +found that so little in it really matters and that everything in it +matters so much! It is not until we are ready to go that we know how +precious is the thing within us that men call--self. It is made up of +all the loves and hates and good and bad of the men and women who went +before us. It does not really belong to us. It belongs to all of the +people who will come after us. There happened to be only a little of +me left to give you, Felice, but the part that is left is the happy +part--the rest of me was lost a long time ago. And the titles and the +names that they called me were not any of them so dear as the one you +gave me--that is + +MAMAN. + +Which think you Felicia Day loved more? That letter or the thick old +parchments that told her that she was the great-great-granddaughter of +a king? + +It was the end of June. If you wanted to get little Miss By-the-Day to +sew for you the Disagreeable Walnut would tell you that she'd gone +away without leaving an address. If you wanted to hear Mademoiselle +Folly at the theaters you discovered that she wasn't playing. + +But in the house in Montrose Place a shining eyed woman made a new +"pattern" for the garden of her life--for the garden of the lives of +all the folks she had taken into that house. They did not know all +about her. They did not know how large the fortune was that was coming +to her. They merely knew that there would be enough to take away the +irritating fight for bread and butter and that each one of them would +be taken care of until each one of them had taught his or her +particular art to provide, and they knew, too, that each one was +expected to repay in a "vairee" businesslike way--by helping some +other fellow. They all of them knew that Miss By-the-Day was planning +to sail for France. They knew it was about something in connection +with the French property but they did not know that she was planning +the most wonderful "pretend" of her whole life. + +The Portia Person was the only one who shared her secret--it was to +the Portia Person that she always confided her troubles. + +"There is a man I know," she told him, "a man named Dudley Hamilt. +When we were both of us vairee young--he--liked me vairee much. But I +went away. And when I came back and he saw me again he did not know me +at all. It was vairee hard for me--that time. You see, I looked vairee +funny and old. Much more funny than when you saw me. As funny as those +little pictures Thad makes so that people will laugh.--I wore Louisa's +bonnet and coat--they were such vairee ugly things--and so--he just +didn't know me.--But now! I--I want to pretend something! This man--I +asked it in the telephone--has been gone away for many weeks in the +west on business and he is coming back soon--and I want you to make a +way--to bring him to the little rectory yard some evening. It is only +a 'pretend' of mine--" she blushed adorably, "perhaps, I can't do it. +But I will try. I will be by the gate and you shall say, 'Here's a +girl you used to know, Dudley Hamilt!' And then you'll hurry off and +leave it for me--I can't pretend I'm young and pretty but I can +pretend I'm--I'm a little amusing--and it will be the last night +before I go to France that I do it--so that if--he doesn't--find--me +amusing--it won't really matter, because the next day I'll be gone and +it will just have been--a 'pretending'--do you mind helping me?" + +The Portia Person didn't mind at all. He wiped his eyeglasses and +coughed and didn't look at her at all. But he promised. + +There was so much for them all to do in those brief days before she +sailed. She took a quick journey to the House in the Woods. She rushed +back to settle a thousand details about the house in Montrose Street-- +joyous details of which perhaps the happiest was the moment she found +that the Poetry Girl had named it Octavia's House. + +She awoke very early that last day of all. She still slept in the +little room at the top of the house. Her modest traveling bags were +packed and ready. Over the back of the chair hung her demure traveling +coat and veil. But tucked away out of sight in the walnut bureau were +a scarf and a carved Spanish comb. The very thoughts of them gave her +stage fright. It was only by keeping her mind sternly upon her journey +that she could steady herself at all. She dressed herself absent- +mindedly in one of Dulcie's much mended frocks, + +"Maybe there's a garden with my French house," she thought as she +looked down into the back yard. She reached for _The theory and practise +of gardening_ and tucked it into the top of Grandy's bag. + +All day long the house seethed with the excitement of her leave- +taking. Most of the morning belonged to Dulcie, who was still working +feverishly on Pandora. The Painter Boy made believe sulk because it +was late afternoon before Felice would come to sit for him for the +last time. He was really quite through with his painting. It was only +because they were all longing to have her in the green gown and he'd +promised the women folk that he would keep her so occupied that she +wouldn't know what a wonderful farewell party her "children" were +planning for her. + +She shook her head when she stood looking at the picture. + +"It's not I you've painted, Nor', it's some one who's young! Shall I +tell you a secret? I do wish you could take all your brushes and make +me as lovely as that girl in the picture--oh, Nor'--she hasn't a gray +hair!" + +"Pouf! Those two or three little gray things that you got worrying +about us!" he touched them lightly, "Why do you care how old you are-- +" + +He kissed the edge of her sleeve awkwardly. His eyes were dancing. + +"I guess something--" he teased her. "I guess you only 'pretend' +you're old--" + +It was the Architect who rescued her. He was in such a temper that he +completely forgot that Felicia was to be kept at the top of the house +until the hour for the "party." + +"It's all very well, Miss Felicia Day," he sputtered, "for you to pick +up a lot of poor old half-blind carpenters that nobody will hire +because they're old--it's a nice sweet philanthropic idea! But +they're absolutely ruining everything! It would cheaper to pay 'em for +their time and let 'em sit outside while we hire some regular persons +to work! What they've done today is spoiling the whole scheme--the +yard looks like a Swiss cheese--come and see--its simply awful!" + +She winked archly at the Painter Boy. She gathered up her green skirts +daintily and descended the broad stairs. + +"Sssssh!" she whispered, "walk lightly, Mr. Architect or you'll wake +up little Miss Architect--besides, we'll have to sneak by the kitchen +or Janet and Molly will see us. They really don't know that I know +there's going to be a party, though I should think--" she paused to +sniff critically as they passed the pantry door, "that Molly would +know that anybody could guess there was a party with celestial smells +like that." She had soothed him somewhat even before they reached the +back yard and of course the lattices weren't really so bad as they had +seemed to his fastidious eye. They did deviate from his neat +blueprints. Even the sullen old carpenters admitted that they did, but +presently things were adjusted and the workmen had departed bearing +the offending trelliage with them with absurd little newspaper +patterns pinned to the tops. + +Felicia was flushed and panting from having cut those ridiculous +patterns. She waved her shears slowly to and fro, and the Architect +shouted with boyish glee. + +"Silliest way I ever heard of," he chortled, "perfectly silly, but the +old ducks did seem to take to it. Felicia Day, you are a little old +wonder." + +She gazed up at him mournfully. + +"Old!" she echoed and shivered. + +"I didn't mean 'old' really," he stammered, "I just meant, well, I +just meant you were--" he paused awkwardly. + +"I don't look awfully old, do I?" she asked it with such delicious +anxiety that he laughed. "I mean, I don't look so awfully old as I +did, do I?" + +He thought he was saying a perfectly satisfactory thing when he +answered. + +"You look just like your wonderful self and we wouldn't have you +changed for worlds. Why, you're our fairy grandmother." + +Her little hand crept to the back of the bench. She steadied herself. +And decided something very quietly. + +"Do this for me," she commanded. "Telephone Mr. Ralph. Tell him I said +that I didn't want him to keep the engagement that I had him make for +me this evening. That I won't be here at nine o'clock, that I have to +go out. That he mustn't bring the visitor I asked him to bring. That +I've changed my mind about seeing that visitor." + +And when he had gone away whistling atrociously and cheerfully she sat +down on the bench and buried her face in her hands. The air was soft +and warm and sweet. It almost threatened rain. And at her feet in the +border of that rebuilt garden little pansies shriveled in the heat of +the afternoon sun. All her life long she would hate the odor of those +dying pansies. She sat very still. She thought that she had come to +the very end. There was nothing more in the world that she wanted to +pretend. Except perhaps that she was hearing Dudley Hamilt's voice +singing, very woodenly, "But my heart's grown numb and my soul is +dumb--" Like Dudley Hamilt, she couldn't bear to think of the rest of +the song, there wasn't any hope of "After years"; the most precious +thing in life, the soul of their youth, had been snatched away from +them and there was nothing left that mattered. And so she sat for a +long time underneath the ivy-locked gate, unheeding the happy babble +of voices that floated out from the windows of the dear old house. + +The Sculptor Girl almost shook her to make her look up. + +"There's a man wants to see you. Awfully theatrical looking person. +I've a hunch it's that beast Graemer. He wouldn't say. Just said he +must see you." + +Felicia stiffened. + +"It's stupid of him to come here. We did send for him, the Portia +Person and I. I wanted to try once more about 'the Juggler.' I said +dreadful things, Dulcie, to the little lawyer man that he sent. I told +the little lawyer man that I thought his wicked Mr. Graemer was afraid +to come to see us--so that's why he's come now, I suppose. I don't +want to see him half so much as I did. I feel vairee cowardly. You +must send your Majesty-of-the-Law down to me. I am a little afraid +alone. And tell Blythe to come. Tell him quickly. I do not like this +job, so I must do it quickly." + +Felicia was absolutely wrong about why the erratic Graemer had come to +see her. He hadn't the remotest intention of bothering to answer the +oft-reiterated claims of the persistent Miss Modder; he wasn't at all +interested in any unknown Miss Day. The person he had come to see was +Mademoiselle Folly and he had come purely on impulse. His agents had +been able to make no headway with Mademoiselle Folly's agents. It had +aroused his curiosity when he discovered that the actress was living +with all those queer geniuses who were dwelling in the much discussed +Octavia House and he assumed that she was merely one of the proteges +of the mysterious wealthy backers of that unusual enterprise. He +thought it very good business indeed that the clever young woman had +known enough to disappear for a brief time that she might whet her +audiences' appetite while she let her agents lift her prices. It +didn't at all occur to him that she was actually abandoning such a +career as her extraordinary success seemed to foretell. He had in mind +a romantic play in which she should make her bow as a legitimate +actress and he had a flattering mountain-to-Mahomet speech ready with +which to introduce his august self to her. He was debonnaire in his +smart summer clothing. He felt rather Lord Bountifullish. And besides, +he was in a very good humor because he had come directly from a +rehearsal of "The Heart of a Boy." The play was scheduled to open very +shortly and it seemed to him that it was going to be an easy success. +All the way over to Brooklyn he had contemplated bill posters who were +slapping their dripping brushes over great posters--corking posters +Graemer thought them, with their effective color scheme of dull greens +and pale yellows. + +Almost any one would have commended those posters. A charming little +figure in the shadows of a wall stood tiptoe with her arms upstretched +and her blonde head shone in the light from a church window above her +as a florid choir boy leaned over the wall to embrace her. + +"Felicia, I love you with all my heart and soul!" the choir boy was +declaring in large red letters, which was rather versatile of him +considering that his lips were pressed firmly upon the blonde lady's. +The placard further announced that he was embracing "America's +foremost romantic actress Edwina Ely" and though there was nothing +about their posture that could have offended even the ghost of Anthony +Comstock, it had an almost galvanic effect upon a stalwart man who had +stopped to look upon it. + +It was just about the moment that Miss Ely's manager had stepped into +the taxicab that was to bear him to Brooklyn, that the outraged +citizen had paused before a side wall at a theater entrance to gape +sceptically at a paste-glistening sheet. That particular poster was +not yet in place. The fair lady still lacked her feet and a +painstaking artisan was just delicately attaching them to her knees. +He never finished attaching them. + +"Dat guy you see going around de coiner," he explained to the +gathering crowd who helped to pick him up. "I wasn't doing nothing to +him, I was justa stooping over when all to onct he hit me and threw me +paste in the street and grabbed me brush and trew it after me paste +and just as I was going to lam him one he ups and shoves some money in +me fists and groans, 'Beg your pardon, of course you aren't +responsible' and off he goes--and somebody better watch after him for +he must have a heluva jag." + +The stalwart citizen did not stop to reason even after he had vented +the first edge of his rage upon the innocent bill poster. He let +himself intuitively guess at the whole damning chain of the Fat +Baritone and his eternal gossiping and the pretty actress and the +acquisitive manager. The intensity of his manner when he pulled open +the manager's door frightened the manager's stenographer into an +unwilling admission that Mr. Graemer had just left for Brooklyn. And a +dazed taxi starter, who decided that somebody's life must be at stake, +remembered with much distinctness that the address, which Mr. Graemer +had given some half hour before was Montrose Place, Brooklyn. He +remembered it because they'd had to look it up in a street guide. + +If Dudley Hamilt had been in a temper before he heard that address he +was literally enraged when he did hear it. Of what had happened in +Montrose Place during the spring months while he had been in the West +he had not the faintest inkling. The last time he had seen the little +street it had looked as desolate and forlorn as on the day when +Felicia had come back to it. He assumed with that rapidity with which +an angry mind makes decisions, that Graemer was proceeding to Montrose +Place for more of the damnably clever "local color" with which he was +wont to dress his plays; that not content with having dramatized +Hamilt's youthful woes to the orchestra circle he wanted to reproduce +the whole thing photographically. + +Hamilt's thoughts raced turbulently as his own taxi followed the route +of Graemer's. He was keenly aware that his frenzy was utterly +illogical, that he hadn't a reasonable argument to present against the +play, that there was no possible way in which he could prevent any man +from writing any play he wished or naming his heroine any name he +chose and yet he grew angrier and angrier as his cab bumped over the +old bridge. + +"There's not a chance in a thousand of my getting my hands on him, +but, oh, if I only could--" he thought vindictively. + +As a matter of fact his "chance in a thousand" was a very good one, +since he was able to direct his driver explicitly because of his +familiarity with the neighborhood. + +Moreover, the astute manager was not making very speedy headway in his +interview with the erstwhile Mademoiselle Folly. His quick eyes +commended the charming figure that the lady made in her quaint frock +against the crumbling garden wall. He spoke a very pretty speech about +her appearance. But he found her haughty indeed considering that she +was nothing but an upstart vaudeville performer. She had no manners at +all, he decided, for she did not even suggest that he sit down. He +actually had to make his proposition standing. + +"Your agent let us know that you're starting for abroad. That's a nice +little plan but it won't get you anywhere at all," he began tersely. +"Except of course that you may get a little fun out of it if you've +never been on the other side. But the best thing for you to do before +you go off for your vacation is to have a contract, signed and sealed, +in your inside pocket. Frankly, I'm charmed with your--er-- +personality. I saw you a couple of months ago at the Palace and I like +the way you get hold of people. I should say that with the right kind +of training you ought to go quite a long way: who knows?" he was +laughing so good humoredly that he did not see her wince, "some of +these days I might pick up a nice little play for you--" + +The lady was standing perfectly still. He decided that she had +admirable repose. Her wide eyes looked straight into his. The +intensity of her low voice was a bit thrilling. + +"If evaire I did want a play," she answered coolly, "I would know +exactly where I would 'pick it up,' as you call it. I would not 'pick +it up' the way you 'pick up' plays, M'sieur Graemer. I have a friend +whose play you 'picked up'--" she gestured toward the house. Her +deliberate reiteration of his chance phrase was irritating to say the +least. He turned uncomfortably to look at the stairway toward which +she was motioning. And he did have the grace to look rather +disconcerted when he saw Miss Blythe Modder approaching. He glanced +quickly back to the woman he had come to see. + +Felicia stepped close to him. + +"I did not want you to come to my house," she began passionately. "I +just wanted you to see the lawyer who attends to certain legal matters +for me." The little breathless rush of her words fascinated him, the +alluring way she slurred her syllables together, the quick staccato +with which she paused on short words! At first he hardly grasped what +she was saying, so intent was he upon her extraordinary manner of +speaking. It made him feel somehow like a child. It irritated and +soothed him at the same time. "I did not want you to come here at +all." She stamped her foot for emphasis. "It is insulting for you to +be in Maman's garden! But now that you're here and Blythe is here and +I am here, why, I think we must talk things ovaire. With this lawyer +who lives here with us. It is Blythe's play 'The Magician' that we +will talk about. It was in your offices for almost a year and you had +it there at least two years before you wrote 'The Juggler,' didn't +you? Tell me!" + +"The two plays are utterly dissimilar--" + +"The two plays are utterly similar." Felicia's cool voice corrected +him. She had an exasperating directness of manner! "Whenever you are +counting how vairee much money you did have from 'The Juggler' do you +not sometimes think that the girl who wrote the play ought to have +some of those moneys?" + +"The two plays were totally dissimilar--" he repeated hotly. + +"Felice! Felice!" groaned the Poetry Girl. "You're just wasting your +breath! It's no use talking to him! Why, I almost got down on my knees +to him! I wept--" + +"I shall not weep," said Felicia calmly. "I shall just tell him how +vairee simple it would be for him to explain. He can just tell people +that it is her play and that some of it is her moneys and then he can +give you the money. Oh, you couldn't have understood how bad, bad, bad +you made things for her! Even this spring, while you were still +getting money from her play, she was poor and sick and almost +starving--just like the girl in her 'Magician'--" + +She paused eloquently but she never let her eyes leave his. He +fidgeted with his hat. He tried to avoid that clear gaze, but whatever +the faint stirrings of his conscience might have prompted him to say +the blundering but well meaning lawyer prevented. That indiscreet +person stepped briskly forward. + +"I am one of Miss Modder's legal advisors," he began importantly. "You +probably know that we are anticipating bringing another and much +stronger action against you. But if you should happen to feel that you +wanted to enter into some sort of negotiations for an adjustment of--" + +Graemer caught his breath. + +"I'll be damned if I do--" he ejaculated. He was white with chagrin to +think that his stupidity had trapped him into such an annoying +situation. He was moving blindly toward the stairway; all he wanted +was a quick termination of the whole irritating interview. + +Felicia stopped him. She put her hand on his arm. + +"Let me explain for you a little," she pleaded, "I am sorry that these +lawyer men do not understand. I know exactly how you happened to do +it. You didn't mean to take it at first, did you? I know because I +once took something that was not mine. It was food," she smiled a +little at the memory. "It did not seem like stealing because it was +just a little food. It just seemed like something I wanted and that I +must have and so I took it. Maybe that was the way it was with you +about 'The Magician.' It was something that you wanted and must have! +Perhaps it didn't seem like stealing because it was only something +that was written on a paper. It wasn't even like something you could +hold in your hand. It was just something somebody wrote down on some +pieces of paper. Maybe you didn't understand that it was all of her +hopes and dreams--" + +"Gad! What a Sunday School you do keep!" he sneered. He tried to pass +her. He had jammed his hat back upon his head. Perhaps he would have +actually gotten away from her only that that was the moment that +Dulcie Dierckt opened the long French doors at the head of the little +outside stairway and motioned down the steps to the excited man who +was following her. + +"There's Mr. Graemer," she said; "here's some one to see you," she +called wickedly, as she leaned across the balcony. + +It was all over so quickly that afterward neither the Poetry Girl nor +the lawyer could tell how it happened. Dulcie could tell a little more +because she watched it from above. + +Dudley Hamilt went down that narrow stairway in a sort of running +leap. He faced the agitated Mr. Graemer squarely but he gave him +something less than half a minute in which to defend himself. And then +he proceeded with a most satisfying thoroughness to pummel and pound +and thump. Their struggling figures shoved to and fro in the pebbled +paths. Janet and Molly O'Reilly ran screaming from their kitchen. The +Poetry Girl scrambled out of their way by jumping to an iron bench. +She dragged Felicia up after her. + +"Stop them! Stop them!" shrieked the Poetry Girl. + +But beside her Felicia clasping her little hands under her chin, +watched with shining eyes; her anger was as the anger of the man who +was fighting. She did not realize who he was or why he had come to the +defense of her Blythe. She only knew that he was doing exactly what +she had been longing to do ever since she had first heard about the +acquisitive Mr. Graemer. And when she heard Blythe Modder shouting +beside her she began to shout too. Only she did not entreat them to +stop fighting. A curious thrill of victory made her voice vibrant with +rapture. + +"Do not stop striking him! Do not stop!" + +And then suddenly, she saw to whom she was calling. And with her new +found joy in her heart she shouted still louder, "Strike him much, +much more, Dudley Hamilt!" + +He stopped, absolutely dazed. He thought that he must be struggling in +a dream. He actually stepped across his fallen antagonist as he strode +toward her. His blonde hair was rumpled from wrestling, his eyes shone +with the light of victory. He stretched out his arms. + +"Are you real--" he stammered, "tell me quickly, are you real--" + +"I am vairee real--" she answered breathlessly, "but I am old--" + +Old! She was agelessly young as she stood there, smiling at him from +her perch on the little iron bench. Her slender figure in the sage +green frock was silhouetted against the wall, her head was lifted +joyously. + +It was the young lawyer who came to his senses first. He shoved the +disheveled Graemer out through the rear gate, the stable gate--it +happened to be open and he took an immense satisfaction in after years +in remembering that it was the stable gate, did that cocky young +lawyer! + +The rest of them fled through the kitchen doorway, or rather Molly +O'Reilly adroitly pushed them through it and for the next half hour +the household babbled discreetly behind drawn blinds. + +But outside in the wee garden the years slipped back as though they +had been Time in Maitre Guedron's song. + +"Dudley Hamilt! Dear Dudley Hamilt! You are hurting my arms a little-- +" + +"Felice! Forgive me! I didn't mean to--it's only that I am afraid you +are not real--I am afraid to let you go--" + +Ineffably content she stood tiptoe to put her hands on his shoulders. +She lifted her adorable head and smiled. + +"Nevaire do--" she murmured with her lips on his. + +THE END + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Little Miss By-The-Day, by Lucille Van Slyke + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE MISS BY-THE-DAY *** + +This file should be named 6002.txt or 6002.zip + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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