Genevieve was Phœbe’s own age, but stockily built, with an up-turning
Irish nose, reddish corkscrew curls, and freckles. She had a proud,
conscious mouth, and her teeth were large. Her eyes were almost as red
as her hair, and small. Around them the skin crinkled up when she
laughed, shutting them away completely. When she had something important
to say, she had a trick of throwing her head back with a toss of the
curls. Phœbe had noted the trick. Once or twice she had even practiced
it in front of her mirror!
Genevieve was more overdressed than usual for her call on Phœbe. She had
a well wrapped package under one arm, and she wasted no time in
delivering it.
“I’ve brought back your books,” she explained, and proffered the
package.
Phœbe stared. “My books?”
“From Miss Simpson’s.” Genevieve laid them on the sitting-room table and
sat, arranging her skirt grandly.
Phœbe still stared. It was as if she had unexpectedly been struck. Of
course, if she was not to continue at the school—— And yet to have her
books sent after her——!
“When my motor called for me,” went on Genevieve, “I had my chauffeur
put them in the car,”—this with a graceful wave of the hand toward the
package. “‘It’s no trouble,’ I said to Miss Simpson, ‘as long as I have
my own motor, and my chauffeur.’ And Miss Simpson said, ‘Thank you, my
dear. Then Phœbe won’t have to come back’.”
Phœbe’s slender body stiffened. “_She_ said I won’t have to?” she
demanded. “You mean my Uncle Bob said it.” Then as Genevieve’s brows and
shoulders lifted simultaneously, “Oh, Genevieve, all the girls have
acted so funny. What’s the matter? Do you know?”
Genevieve smoothed the crisp folds of her taffeta dress. “I’d rather not
say,” she declared, importantly evasive.
But Phœbe was not to be put off. “Oh, please, Genevieve!” she entreated.
“Tell me! Have I done anything?”
“N-n-n-no.” Then, raising her eyes to Phœbe’s anxious face, “You—you
haven’t heard anything?”
Phœbe shook her head. “Is it because we haven’t got an automobile?” she
ventured; “only a horse and a surrey?”
The reddish eyes disappeared as Genevieve laughed—musically, in the most
approved Simpson manner. “Oh, several of the girls at the School are
awfully poor,” she reminded. “I let them ride in my car.
But”—significantly—“they have fine standing, Miss Simpson says. And
they’ve never had any scandal.”
Vaguely Phœbe caught the inference. “Oh, yes; scandal,” she said, almost
under her breath. “That would be awful.”
Genevieve reached to touch Phœbe’s arm condescendingly. “Don’t you
care,” she counseled, “because I like you just the same.”
Phœbe fell back. Her face paled; her heart pounded. Scandal! and she was
on the verge of knowing just what was meant. She thought of the prayers.
She longed to know the worse. “Genevieve,” she whispered, “have I—what
scandal?”
“It’s funny you don’t know,” marveled Genevieve.
“Oh, what is it? Please! _Please!_” Phœbe’s lips were trembling.
Genevieve, having postponed her informing to her own complete
satisfaction, now saw that the moment was ripe for her climax. “Phœbe,”
she began solemnly, “Miss Simpson doesn’t want you at our school because
your mother’s in Reno.”
“Reno?” repeated Phœbe. Her face lighted joyously. Mother was in Reno!
And if she were to carry out that plan to run away——! And after all, it
was not the prayers!
“Nevada,” added Genevieve, with finality. The other’s relief irritated.
It was Phœbe’s turn to toss her head. “Nevada is good for my mother’s
cough,” she declared.
“Yes?” said Genevieve. “Well, everybody says your mother’s gone
West—hm!—for another reason.”
“She’s sick,” returned Phœbe, quietly. “And it’s smart—Mother said so—to
go to Florida or West when you’re sick.”
Once more Genevieve shrugged. “Of course, you ought to know about your
own mother. But anyhow there was something in the papers—the New York
papers. It was a printed telegram from Nevada.”
“Certainly there was,” Phœbe agreed. “Because my mother’s a New Yorker,
and so the newspapers print that she’s out there. They’d be sure to.
She’s so beautiful.”
Genevieve rose abruptly. “Oh, all right!” she retorted. “But beautiful
or not, all the same you can’t blame Miss Simpson. She doesn’t want a
girl in her school that’s got a mother that’s divorced.”
“_Di-vorced!_”
Genevieve’s eyes shone. It was the effect she wanted. She moved toward
the door. “Well, I must be going,” she announced.
Phœbe led the way. In the hall, she turned up the stairs without even a
glance toward her departing visitor. Her throat ached. There was a
sinking feeling under the high, wide belt of her gingham dress. She
longed for the seclusion of her room—_no_, for the darkness of the
clothes-closet. She gained it, going unsteadily. She closed the door.
Then she sank beside the suit-case and laid her head upon it.
Divorce! She knew what that meant. Over and over she had seen it all in
the “movies”. Her father would no longer be married to her mother: The
two might not live in the same house: Her mother would not even dare to
come to Grandma’s!
Something seemed to seize her then, to press upon her from all sides, to
crush and smother her. With head lowered, and face down, the blood came
charging up her throat, so that she went dizzy, and felt nauseated. A
chill shook her as she lay. She thought of death, and prayed for it.
“If I died, they’d both be sorry,” she told herself, “and maybe then
they wouldn’t be divorced.”
Next, overwhelmingly, came a longing to see her mother. “I’ll go,” she
determined.
She sat up. And in the dark of the closet, with the door shut, and as
noiselessly as possible, she packed the suit-case.