The blow she awaited fell—twenty-four hours later.
Phœbe spent much of that twenty-four hours in conjectures. And the final
and pathetic conclusion to which she came was that she had done
something wrong, something “awful bad,” though what it was she could not
guess. But whatever it was, it was so terrible that the girls at Miss
Simpson’s had turned against her.
And what about Miss Simpson herself? Phœbe understood that Miss Simpson
was a personage in the community. Though her school was not the only one
of its kind in the place, it was the only one that counted. To be, or
not to be, a “Simpson girl” meant, on the one hand, membership in that
exclusive very young crowd; on the other, almost complete ostracism from
it. Miss Simpson had in her hands (everybody knew it) the social future
of the town’s growing girls.
Phœbe’s cry over, Uncle Bob had gone to join his two brothers in the
library. A conference began there, Phœbe felt sure; she was certain,
too, that she was the subject of it. As she paused at the foot of the
stairs—this just outside the library door—she heard Grandma’s voice,
too. Grandma was weeping!
Phœbe went up to her room. She stole up, on tiptoe, guiltily. Her brows
were puckered, her eyes wide, her lips pursed. She forbore to steady
herself by a hand on the banisters, lest they creak.
As she went, she made a resolve. It had to do with Sophie. In a way, of
course, Sophie could not be trusted. For though on occasions Sophie
seemed to belong on Phœbe’s side—in a dividing of the household which
existed only in Phœbe’s mind—at other times the maid swung over to the
clique of grown-ups, and Phœbe was left, as it were, on the defence,
alone. Yet Phœbe had discovered that now and again it was possible to
get information from Sophie. Phœbe’s resolve was to “pump” Sophie.
Arrived in her room, she gave herself up, a second time, to a close
scrutiny of herself in the glass. First, she looked at her clothes,
feeling that, after all, there was some fault in them (and Uncle Bob,
though a Judge, was only a man, after all, and could not competently
pass on the matter of a girl’s dress). Having satisfied herself that
there was nothing glaringly faulty in her dress, Phœbe took her
hand-mirror and went to a window; and seating herself, examined her
face, hair and throat—critically, unsparingly.
Once she had asked her mother if she was pretty. And Mother—herself so
beautiful!—had answered, with a kiss, “Of course _I_ think so.” But now,
Phœbe asked herself, was this quota of hair, features and slender neck
considered attractive in the eyes of those who did not love her?
Every freckle and flaw stood out alarmingly in the afternoon light.
Phœbe concluded that in point of good looks she brought nothing to Miss
Simpson’s School. And as she had no money, like Genevieve Finnegan——
She put down the mirror and went to the closet. In the daytime, she was
never afraid to open the door of the closet. That nameless, terrifying
Thing which made the place dreaded at night, went higher, after sun-up,
so Phœbe believed, to lurk in the cave-like storage places that, sloping
of roof, opened off the attic.
She had not many dresses in the closet. She touched each in turn. Then
she stood for a few minutes on the threshold of the closet to get a
general and comprehensive idea of her little wardrobe. After which,
hunting her old doll, she went back to the window to think.
Grandma, weeping—that seemed, to her, the thing most significant. Why
was Grandma weeping? “No,” said Phœbe, solemnly, to the doll, “it isn’t
my face, and it isn’t my clothes.” For, after all, when it came to
looks, Phœbe felt herself to be better looking than, say, Genevieve. And
there were two or three other girls at Miss Simpson’s who were, if
proud, quite plain. As for clothes, Grandma had no need to feel badly
about them; all she had to do was order more!
It was, indeed, a mystery. Phœbe tried to remember any story that
resembled hers among all the moving-pictures she had ever seen. She
could remember a little girl who stole jam, and another little girl who
stole watermelons. But she had taken nothing, had done no wrong
wilfully. At that, the tears of self-pity flowed. She hid her face
against the doll.
Then—of a sudden—she felt she knew! Prayers! That was it! The girls had
discovered, somehow, that Phœbe had only recently learned to pray! She
stood up, dropping the doll to the floor.
Mother had never taught her to pray. And once when Phœbe had asked about
prayers (having seen two children kneeling beside their father’s chair
in a moving-picture), Mother had answered, rather sharply, “I don’t
believe in teaching innocent little tots that they’re full of sin. It’s
wicked.” But Grandma—when she found that Phœbe did not know “Now I lay
me”—Grandma had knelt down beside Phœbe (they were in Phœbe’s room) and
implored God to touch Phœbe’s heart, and claim Phœbe’s love. And a day
or two later, Uncle John had called Phœbe into the library, where Phœbe
had learned “Now I lay me,” and the Lord’s Prayer, and had listened to a
very great deal that Uncle John said, the sum and substance of which was
that Phœbe’s ignorance in the matter of prayers was so shocking as to be
beyond even Uncle John’s power to express. Phœbe gathered further,
though her uncle was discreet when it came to naming anyone who should
be blamed, that Mother, yes, and Daddy, were equally culpable, and that
Phœbe had virtually been snatched from the burning.
So—Phœbe decided—it was the prayers. True, she had prayed faithfully for
the past two or three months. But the girls had discovered about the
unlucky thirteen years and more that went before!
Something pounded in Phœbe’s throat. And there by the window, one knee
on the forgotten doll, she bowed herself....
Later, when she went down to supper, she felt more certain than ever
that she was right. It was the prayers! For as she entered the
dining-room, guiltily, wistfully, on slow foot, and with lowered look,
nobody greeted her cheerily. Her father kissed her, but absent-mindedly.
He ate without speaking. Uncle John was silent, too—and stern. Uncle Bob
made one or two pathetic attempts to start conversation, but Phœbe could
see that even jolly Uncle Bob——! And Grandma, pressing dainties upon
Phœbe, and smiling tenderly (with swollen eyes), was plainly anxious and
disturbed.
So was Sophie! True, she winked at Phœbe once during the course of the
meal. But it was a solemn wink. Her manner was subdued. She moved
carefully, rattling no dishes. Phœbe caught the girl’s eyes upon her
more than once. Phœbe understood the look—it was all examination, and
curiosity.
“Can Sophie take me upstairs?” asked Phœbe, at bedtime. The uncles were
back in the library once more, and Phœbe’s father was with them. But
there was no sound of argument.
“Are you—lonesome?” returned Grandma. And her head shook very much.
“I’d like to have Sophie go up with me,” Phœbe answered.
But when she and Sophie were upstairs, alone, and the latter had
finished her pillow-beating, Phœbe asked no questions. She feared to;
and she knew that Sophie would not go without some word, some hint.
It came. “Miss Simpson was in to see your Grammaw this afternoon,”—this
casually, with a quick look; then, “Did you know it?”
Phœbe was equally adroit. “She was?” she asked indifferently.
“Yop. I don’t like that woman.”
Sophie went. And Phœbe, left behind in the dark, lay thinking. Miss
Simpson had called! Uncle Bob had not mentioned it. Why? And why had
Miss Simpson called? What had she told or asked? Phœbe knew that it was
this visit which had made Uncle Bob decide against Phœbe’s continuing at
the school.
If the five grown men and women in the big rooms below could have known
how grievously Phœbe’s ignorance of any part of the real truth was
torturing the child, then each, and all, would have hastened up the
stairs to that little figure, turning and tossing, as the bewildered
brain strove to arrive at facts. For though the facts were bad enough,
Phœbe’s guesses were far more terrible. She did not pray, or weep. She
lay and planned how she would run away—to Mother.
But she was quite herself in the morning. When she awoke, the sight of
branches against her windows—lovely, green, tree-top branches, of
sunlight streaming in, the songs of birds coming faintly, and loud
cock-crows, all these drove away magically the fear and ache and
loneliness of the night.
She remembered that she did not have to go to school—and was glad! Why,
it was quite like a Saturday! Freedom, no sermons, no admonitions to be
quiet of foot and voice! And had she not heard about some little new
ducks that were about to hatch?
She sprang up. She kissed her mother’s photograph with a smiling kiss.
She sang over her dressing. She showed a sunny face at the
breakfast-table, where Uncle John ate silently, and Uncle Bob sat behind
his paper. The night before, what a sense of guilt was hers! It was
gone. Her good-morning was merry. She winked back saucily at Sophie’s
wink, and ate her oatmeal with good appetite. Grief and fourteen, how
short was their stay together! For she was entirely overlooking the fact
that this was the day she was intending to run away!
“And what’s my little daughter figuring on doing this morning?” her
father asked; “—lucky Phœbe, who doesn’t have to be shut up in school!”
Phœbe thought perhaps the ducks were hatched by now.
“Hatched and swimming in Uncle Bob’s pool,” announced Grandma. “And the
poor mother-hen is so worried——!”
At that, Uncle Bob came out from behind his paper—came out like the sun
from behind a cloud. And he had another cup of coffee, and threw a
violet across the table to Phœbe, and pretended to be shocked at the
conduct of the ducks. So that Phœbe laughed, and Grandma and Daddy
smiled—yes, even Uncle John smiled. Breakfast was cheerful.
Gray eyes thoughtful, Phœbe fell to contrasting it with breakfasts in
New York; the contrast was the sharper when each of Grandma’s three sons
pushed back his chair in turn and gave his mother a hearty kiss. What a
lot of kissing went on at Uncle Bob’s! Everyone kissed Grandma
good-morning and good-night. In New York, Daddy kissed Phœbe, and Mother
kissed Phœbe: each other they did not kiss.
Phœbe thought of this again later in the day, when Genevieve came. For
it was Genevieve who delivered the blow!