Phœbe knew a great deal about death. Had she not seen it thousands of
times on the screen, and in nearly every conceivable form?—by fire and
water, by famine, by the knife of the assassin, the cup of the poisoner,
the burglar’s automatic, the soldier’s bayonet. Comfortably seated
beside her mother or Sally, before a great curtain that sprang into life
as the theatre darkened, she had even watched the waging of the Great
War!
So it was easy for her, with her imagination thus trained and
stimulated, to call up—once she knew of her mother’s death—such pictures
in her mind as could augment to the point of torture the natural grief
of her fourteen years. She saw her mother die alone, weeping out her
last moments; or she saw a nurse and a priest watching beside that
distant bed. She saw other things that made her shudder, and cover her
eyes, or cling to whomever was nearest for the comfort and sympathy that
could drive away such terrible visions.
That first week was a week of poignant suffering. She was not left alone
one moment. By day she was passed, as it were, from hand to hand in the
household, taking her turn with Sophie in the kitchen of a morning,
spending the early afternoon with Grandma, the later hours with Uncle
Bob. By night she slept only if someone sat beside her, in her high, big
room, and held her hand. Sometimes Grandma stayed the first half of the
night, or Sophie. After midnight it was Uncle Bob who took his place at
her pillow.
There was something particularly sweet and comforting to Phœbe about
that companionship through the night. If she started from troubled
dreams, and cried out, always there was an answering voice, low and
loving, to soothe her; and there were tender kisses, and in the dark a
hand would caress her cheek or smooth her hair. Then she would murmur a
little, brokenly, and sleep again.
She found that a bereavement was not without its compensations! For one
thing, the local newspapers had short, but kind, notices of the death,
in the Far West, of Mrs. James Blair. And there were references to “the
little daughter, Phœbe, now residing with her grandmother, Mrs. John G.
Blair”. Never before had Phœbe seen her own name in print. She liked the
notices. They made her cry, but they also interested her strangely.
Then there were the black bands which Grandma sewed on the left sleeves
of Phœbe’s Sunday and second-best dresses. Uncle John had opposed the
bands strongly, and in Phœbe’s presence. He did not approve of the
wearing of mourning by children. But Uncle Bob thought otherwise. “It’s
the least we can do,” he said firmly. Grandma agreed. Sophie thought a
black band was “awful swell”. And as for Phœbe, a band on her sleeve
seemed to set her apart, somehow, to single her out particularly. And
she liked to wear it. She was almost proud of it!
There were other compensations. People sent her flowers, and candy, and
Miss Simpson wrote her a note of condolence—a most polite note, which
Phœbe tore up! And there was another letter, a “Round Robin” from eight
of the girls at Miss Simpson’s. Phœbe was so happy when it came—happy in
a triumphant way. This letter she also destroyed. And she refused to
answer either.
“They didn’t like me when my mother was alive,” she declared. “And they
said things about Mother.”
“Good for you, old dumpling!” commended Uncle Bob. “There’s spunk for
you!”
“Don’t encourage Phœbe in that sort of thing!” begged Uncle John.
“They’re a lot of hypocrites,” declared his brother. “And this
youngster’s got sense enough to know it. Why didn’t they show some
sympathy over the other thing?”
“True,” agreed Uncle John. “For that was worse than death.”
“Exactly. But now, they begin their writing. They were thinking of
themselves when they—when I took Phœbe away from there. And now whom are
they thinking about?—that Simpson woman’s pocket-book! Confound them!”
Phœbe gave some reflection to that short passage between her uncles.
What was worse than death? She knew: scandal!
But the most gratifying thing that happened to her was a surprise. One
night she wakened to find her hand in the clasp of a hand smaller than
Uncle Bob’s, softer than Sophie’s, firmer than Grandma’s. And without
being told who it was, she instantly guessed. “Miss Ruth!” she
whispered.
“It is Miss Ruth, Phœbe,” came the whisper back. Velvet lips touched her
forehead and her hair. An arm went round her, to pat the slender
shoulders and tuck in the covers.
“I love you,” sighed Phœbe, contented, and slept again.
After that Miss Ruth continued to come. Often in the darkness, if Phœbe
was wakeful, Miss Ruth would tell her stories—wonderful stories, about
princesses and knights, goblins and dwarfs and fairies. These were all
new to Phœbe, who knew best the more modern stories of the films.
“Why didn’t you ever come to see us before?” Phœbe wanted to know.
“You like me, don’t you, dear?” Miss Ruth returned happily. It was early
morning, and Phœbe had just wakened. Already the room was lightening
with the dawn. Miss Ruth leaned down and cupped Phœbe’s cheek in the
palm of a hand. “And you’re like your father,” she added with a tender
smile.
Soon there came a time when Phœbe slept through the nights without
waking, when watchers were no longer needed beside her bed. She did not
understand how it was, but she had come to feel two things: First, it
did not seem true that her mother was dead, and having had no letters
from her mother since leaving New York, there was not even the cutting
off of messages to bring home to Phœbe her loss; second, her mother’s
death settled finally a question that had vexed Phœbe sorely, the
troublesome question of what was going to happen once the divorce was
granted. Now Phœbe knew. She had only Daddy! She would go with Daddy.
And as this fact was borne in upon her, she remembered the matter that
Manila had broached. She recollected, too, the decision she herself had
made—to thwart. “And I must get at it,” she declared. “Because now, with
Mother gone it’s likely——”
She wrote her father. From Nevada he had gone on directly southward, and
his address was such a very strange one that Phœbe had her Uncle Bob
direct her envelope. But no one saw what she wrote. Though what she
wrote was not what she had fully intended to say. At first she had
determined to tell him frankly that she could never, never bear to have
a step-mother, who would hate her, and beat her with part of a tug, and
turn her father against her. She ended by sending him four cheerful,
newsy pages; only at the end did she allow herself to touch remotely
upon what was uppermost in her mind.
“_Darling Daddy_,” ran her final paragraph, “_you don’t like anybody but
me, do you? Oh, dear Daddy, say you don’t._”
When the letter was gone (she posted it herself), she realized that now,
with Mother dead, it would be harder than ever for her if her father
were to marry a second time. She saw that she must have counsel from
someone. And who knew more about the whole thing than Manila? She
determined to see Manila.
During those first weeks following Phœbe’s arrival from New York, how
anxious the family had been that she should meet and talk to no one. But
now, as during Phœbe’s attendance at Miss Simpson’s, her uncles and her
grandmother were more than anxious that she should have company—and
plenty of it, so that her thoughts would not dwell too much upon her
loss.
“Aren’t there some little girls that you’d like to have come?” Grandma
often wanted to know.
This gave Phœbe her opportunity! “I’d like to see Manila,” she announced
one day.
And so it came about that Manila paid Phœbe a second visit, and the two
went out to the summerhouse, taking along Phœbe’s old doll, and Phœbe
told Manila all about Mother, and wept, her head on Manila’s knee, and
confessed her fears and her intention to thwart.
Manila was practical. “Well, if he comes back with a Peru wife you can’t
do nothin’,” she argued. (So monosyllabic as a rule, Manila, when it
came to the subject of step-mothers, could be even talkative!) “But if
he comes back alone, why——”
“What?” asked Phœbe. “Because if he went to the movies, he’d _know_
step-mothers are bad. But he doesn’t. And I can’t think how to show him.
I just can’t.”
“I know.” Manila nodded solemnly.
“How?”
“We’ll show him _mine_.”
“Oh, Manila!” Phœbe was overjoyed. “That’s a wonderful plan! Daddy’ll
see her, and he’ll hate her. But how can you get him to see her?”
Manila laughed. “Easy!” she declared. “I’ll fix it so’s she’ll foller me
here.”
Phœbe looked at her with awe—and respect. “Suppose she was to try to
kill you!” she ventured. “Step-mothers are awful bad in the movies.”
“Let her kill me,” answered Manila, philosophically. “Then the Judge’d
have her hung.”
“Say, what does your step-mother look like?” Phœbe wanted to know.
Manila thought. “She’s like a rat most,” she concluded finally. “She’s
slim, and she goes around so’s you don’t hear her comin’. She has black
eyes, and slick hair, and a sniffy nose.”
“Ugh!” breathed Phœbe. (After that the imaginary step-mother that lurked
in the big Blair house whenever the light was dim, took on a ratlike
personality—slenderness, stealthiness, small black eyes and sniffy
nose.)
Phœbe visualized the lady under discussion. “The Hanging of the
Rat-Woman,” she mused. “That would be a wonderful title.”
Manila thought so too.
“I wish I was a big cat,” she confided, “I’d wait behind somethin’, and
when Mrs. Botts come by, I’d jump at her, and break her back.” Manila’s
face was pale with the thrill of it, and with hate. Phœbe regarded her
more respectfully than ever.
“I run away today,” went on Manila. “I don’t never ask Mrs. Botts what I
can do, and Paw was downtown. Miss Ruth telephoned, and when she said
you wanted to see me, over I come.”
“But when you get home—?” It was Phœbe’s time to go white.
Manila’s eyes narrowed. “If she licks me, I’ll tell the Judge on her,”
she threatened. “And he’ll have her in Court, and shame her like he did
once before. And a lickin’ don’t hurt long.”
Manila waited about that afternoon long past the time when, in the
natural order of events, Phœbe thought her visitor should have gone. For
suppertime approached, and yet Manila lingered.
“Are you afraid?” Phœbe wanted to know.
“Uh-uh,” denied Manila. “I’m waitin’ till I’m sure Paw is back. If Mrs.
Botts licks me I want him to see. Then I yell hard, and the folks on
either side call Paw up on the phone.”
When Manila went, Phœbe experienced real terror. At the supper-table,
not being able to eat, she confided her fears to Grandma and her uncles.
Whereupon Uncle Bob promptly called the Botts home up on the telephone.
Mrs. Botts answered. She seemed as quiet as possible, he said.
“But she’ll bide her time, the vixen!” he added. “And Manila oughtn’t to
leave home like that. I have my hands full enough as it is.”
Phœbe said nothing. What if he knew that she and Manila had planned,
when the time should be ripe, so to tantalize Mrs. Botts that the latter
would invade the Blair house, there to serve to Phœbe’s father as a
horrible example of a real step-mother?
“Just let the mean old thing keep away from here,” said Phœbe, by way of
tactfully turning Uncle Bob from even a suspicion of that plan.
“My dear niece!” chided Uncle John.