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--"