For half an hour longer Carmencita chatted gaily, offering dish after
dish of imaginary food with the assurance that it would cause no
sickness or discomfort, and at the child's spirit and imagination Van
Landing marveled. The years of ignorance and indifference, in which he
had not cared to know what Frances knew all men should know, came back
disquietingly, and he wondered if for him it were too late.
As Carmencita got up to clear the table he took out his watch and
looked at it, then put it quickly back lest she should see. Who was
going to take the note? Why couldn't he go to the place at which was
held the class of Little Big Sisters and get Frances? With a quick
indrawing breath he handed his host cigars.
"I hope you smoke," he said; "that is, if Carmencita does not object."
"Oh, I don't object. Smoke!" Carmencita's hand was waved. "After I
wash the dishes I'll write the note, then I'll go down and get Noodles
to take it. I'll ask Mr. Robinsky to bring the harp up, Father. He
brought it home for us; he's a flute-er." The explanation was made to
Van Landing. "He always brings it home when Father and I are going
somewhere else. Smoke, please. I love to smell smoke smell."
With a splash the remaining water in the tea-kettle was poured in the
dish-pan, and for a few moments the clatter of knives and forks and
spoons prevented talk. Over the blind man's face crept the content
that comes from a good cigar, and in silence he and his guest smoked
while Carmencita did her work. Not long was there silence, however,
for very shortly the child was on a stool at Van Landing's feet, in
her hands a pad of paper, and on her knee a backless magazine.
For half a minute she looked in Van Landing's face. "Isn't it nice and
funny--your being here? I like you." Her voice was joyous. "If I tell
you something, you won't tell?" She leaned forward, hands on his
knees. "This afternoon before I went out I asked God please to let
something nice happen. There hasn't anything very nice happened for so
long, I was afraid He had forgot. What must I write, Mr. Van?"
Into Van Landing's face the color surged, then died away and left it
strangely white. The child's eyes were holding his, and he did not try
to avoid them. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was to
get Frances quickly.
"Tell her I must see her to-night, that I must come to her. Why can't
I go to her, Carmencita?"
"Because she doesn't want anybody to come to see her that she doesn't
tell to come. She told me so herself, and I wouldn't break her rules
for a gold ring with a ruby in it. I know. I'll tell her I'm bound to
show her something to-night or I won't sleep a wink. And you'll be
_It_! You can go in Father's room, and when she comes in you will come
out and say--What will you say, Mr. Van?"
"I don't know. Perhaps I sha'n't say anything. Sometimes one can't."
"I'll look in that book I read once and see what he said, if you want
me to. It was a beautiful book. It had an awful lot of love in it. I
know what I'm going to write."
For some moments she wrote laboriously on the pad, which wabbled
badly on her knees, then she folded the piece of paper and, getting
up, went toward the door. Van Landing followed her.
"The boy," he said. "Will you give him this and tell him if the note
is delivered to Miss Barbour personally there will be more when he
comes back?" He held out his hand.
As if not seeing aright, Carmencita looked closely at what was held
toward her, then up in Van Landing's face. "You must have plenty of
money, if you haven't any friends," she said, and in her voice was
faint suspicion. "Noodles can't have that. He'd never go anywhere for
me again if he got that much." Her hand waved his away. "When he comes
back, if you'll give him a quarter he'll stand on his head. It's hard
and hollow, and he makes right smart standing on it and wriggling his
feet." She shook her head. "It would ruin him to give him a dollar.
Please read to Father."
Her visitor's face flushed. Why couldn't he remember? "Very well," he
said; "manage it your way. Tell him to hurry, will you?'"
Would she come? With his lips Stephen Van Landing was pronouncing the
words of the article he had again begun to read to the blind harpist,
but in his heart, which was beating thickly, other words were surging,
and every now and then he wiped his forehead lest its dampness be seen
by the child's keen eyes. Would she come? Three years had passed since
senseless selfishness on his part had made her spirit flare and she
had given him back his ring. For a moment he had held it, and in the
dancing flames of the logs upon the hearth in the library of her
beautiful old-fashioned home its stones had gleamed brilliantly,
flashed protesting fire; then he had dropped it in the blaze and
turned and left the room. Had she forgotten, or had she suffered, too?
With mechanical monotony the words continued to come from his lips,
but his thoughts were afar off, and presently Carmencita took the
magazine out of his hand.
"Excuse me," she said, "but Father is asleep, and you don't know a
word you're saying. You might as well stop."
Putting the magazine on the table, Carmencita drew the stool on which
she was sitting closer to Van Landing's chair, and, hands clasped
around her knees, looked up into his eyes. In hers was puzzled
questioning.
"I beg your pardon." His face flushed under the grave scrutiny bent
upon him. "I was reading abominably, but I couldn't get my mind--"
"I know," Carmencita nodded understandingly. "I do that way sometimes
when I'm saying one thing and thinking another, and Father always
takes a little nap until I get out of the clouds. He says I spend a
lot of my time in the clouds. I'm bound to soar sometimes. If I didn't
make out I wasn't really and truly living here, on the top floor, with
the Rheinhimers underneath, but just waiting for our house to be fixed
up, I couldn't stand it all the time. I'd go--"
She hesitated, then again went on. "You see, it's this way. There 're
a lot of things I hate, but I've got to stand them, and the only way I
can do it is to get away from them in my mind sometimes. Father says
it's the way we stand things that proves the kind of person we are;
but Father is Father, and I am me, and letting out is a great relief.
Did you ever feel as if you're bound to say things sometimes?"
"I'm afraid I've not only felt I had to say them, but I said them."
Van Landing looked at his watch. "Your Father is doubtless right,
but--"
"Noodles hasn't had time to get back yet, and she might not be
there." Carmencita glanced toward the clock. "And Father is always
right. He's had to sit so many hours alone and think and think and
think, that he's had time to ask God about a good many things we don't
take time to ask about. I pray a lot, but my kind of prayers isn't
praying. They're mostly asking, and Father says prayer is
receiving--is getting God in you, I mean. I don't understand, but he
does, and he doesn't ask for things like I do, but for patience and
courage and--and things like that. No matter what happens, he keeps on
trusting. I don't. I'm not much of a truster. I want to do things my
way, myself." She leaned forward. "If I tell you something will you
promise not to tell anybody, not even Miss Frances when--when it's all
right?"
"I promise."
Van Landing nodded at the eager little face upraised to his. It was
singularly attractive and appealing, and the varying emotions that
swept over it indicated a temperament that took little in life calmly,
or as a commonplace happening, and a surge of protest at her
surroundings swept over him.
"I promise," he repeated. "I won't tell."
"Cross your heart and shut your eyes and I will tell you."
Hands on his knees, Carmencita watched the awkward movements of Van
Landing's fingers, then she laughed joyously, but when she spoke her
voice was in a whisper.
"I'm writing a book."
"You are doing what?"
"Writing a book! It's perfectly grand. That is, some days it is, but
most days it is a mess. It was a mess yesterday, and I burned up every
single word I wrote last week. I'll show it to you if you want to see
it."
Without waiting for an answer Carmencita sprang to her feet, and with
noiseless movement skipped across the room, and from the middle drawer
of the chest between the windows took out a large flat box.
"This is it." Again taking her seat on the stool at Van Landing's
feet, she opened the box carefully. One by one she lifted out of it
pieces of paper of varying size and color and held them toward her
visitor, who, hands clasped between knees, was bending forward and
watching with amazed interest the seemingly exhaustless contents of
the box beside him.
"I use pad-paper when I have it." Several white sheets were laid in a
pile by themselves. "But most of the chapters are on wrapping-paper.
Mrs. Beckwith gives me all of hers, and so does Mrs. Rheinhimer when
her children don't chew it up before she can save it. That's chapter
fourteen. I don't like it much, it's so squshy, but I wrote it that
way because I read in a newspaper once that slops sold better than
anything else, and I'm writing this to sell, if I can."
"Have you named it?" Van Landing's voice was as serious as
Carmencita's. "I've been told that a good title is a great help to a
book. I hope yours will bring you a good deal of money, but--"
"So do I." Carmencita's hands came together fervently. "I'm bound to
make some money, and this is the only way I can think of until I'm
fourteen and can go to work. I'm just thirteen and two months, and I
can't go yet. The law won't let me. I used to think it took a lot of
sense to write a book, but the Damanarkist says it don't, and that
anybody who is fool enough to waste time could write the truck people
read nowadays. He don't read it, but I do, all I can get--I like it."
"I've never tried to write." Van Landing again glanced at the clock.
Noodles was staying an interminably long time. "Like you, I imagined
it took some measure of ability--"
"Oh, but it don't. I mean it doesn't take any to write things like
that." Carmencita's finger pointed to several backless magazines and a
couple of paper-bound books on the table behind her. "I read once that
people like to read things that make them laugh and cry and--and
forget about the rent money, and tell all about love-dovies and
villains and beautiful maidens, and my book's got some of all those
kinds of things in it. It hasn't got any--What did you say you thought
it took to write a book?"
"Ability--that is, a little of it."
"I guess that depends on the kind of book it is. I put something of
everything I could think of in mine, but I didn't put any ability in.
I didn't have any to put, and, besides, I wanted it to sell. That's
the chapter I love best." A large piece of brown paper was waved in
the air. "It's the one in which the Princess Patricia gets ready to
die because she hears her sweetheart making love to some one else, and
then she comes to her senses and makes him marry the other girl so
they can live miserable ever after, and the Princess goes about doing
good like Miss Frances. But I'm going to marry her to somebody before
I'm through--I'm--"
"You believe in marriage, then." Van Landing smiled, and, stooping,
picked up several sheets of paper evidently torn from a blank-book.
"This must be the courtship chapter. It seems rather sentimental."
"It is. Regular mush slush. It's the kind of courting a man who isn't
much does--that is, I guess it's the kind, but the Princess
understands. She's been fooled once. Tell me"--Carmencita leaned
forward and, arms again crossed on Van Landing's knees, looked
anxiously in his face--"what does a man say when he's really and truly
courting? I mean a nice man. When the Real one comes, the Right
one--what will he say? I'm just about there, and I don't know how to
go on."
"I wish I could tell you." Van Landing leaned back in his chair and,
taking out his watch again, looked at it. "I shouldn't dare to try to
write a novel, consequently--"
"I'll try anything while I'm waiting to go to work." Carmencita sat
back dejectedly. "Is a book a novel because it has love in it?"
"It is generally supposed to be. When you are older you may write
your love scenes with greater knowledge and--"
"No, I won't. I don't expect to have any love scenes when I get
married. I've read a lot of that, and it don't last. All I want my
husband to say is, 'Will you marry me, Carmencita?' and I will say,
'Yes,' and I hope we'll keep on liking each other. Some don't." Her
face changed, and she sat upright, her hands pressed to her breast.
"_This_ is a novel--to--night is! We're living one, and you're the
Prince and Miss Frances is the Princess, and I found you! Oh, my
goodness! what is that?"
With a swift movement she was on her feet and at the door. Van
Landing, too, rose quickly. Below could be heard loud voices, the
moving of furniture, and the cries of frightened children, and
cautiously Carmencita turned the knob and went into the hall.
"Old Beer-Barrel is drunk again." Tiptoeing to the banister, she
leaned over it. "When he gets like this he's crazy as a loon, and some
day he'll kill somebody. Goodness gracious! he's coming up here!"
Before Van Landing could reach her she was inside and at the
wash-stand. Taking up the pitcher filled with water, she again ran
into the hall, and as the cursing, stumbling man began to mount the
stairs she leaned over the banister and poured the contents of the
pitcher on his head. As if shot, the man stood still, face upturned,
hair drenched, hands trembling, then he sat down on the steps.
Giving the pitcher to Van Landing, she told him to fill it and pointed
to a faucet in the hall. "I don't think he'll need another; one is
generally enough. I've seen him like this before. His wife won't throw
water in his face, but I throw." She leaned farther over the railing.
"If you'll be quiet and go back quick I won't put any more water on
you; it's awful cold, but if you don't--"
Slowly, and as if dazed, the man on the steps got up, and as he
disappeared Carmencita nodded to her visitor to go back to her Father,
now standing by the table. Closing the door, she came toward him and
pushed him again in his chair, smoothing lightly the snow-white hair
and kissing the trembling fingers, then at his feet she took her seat.
"I'm so sorry he waked you. It was just old Beer-Barrel. He oughtn't
to drink"--she raised her eyes to Van Landing's--"but a man who's got
a wife like his is bound to do something, and sometimes I wish I could
put the water on her instead of him."