SHEILA
"I had _mal de mer_ when I was on the steamer," the child said, in her
pretty, painstaking English--she spoke French habitually. "I do not
like to have it on the land. The gentleman in there," she pointed to
the room beyond where Gaspard was again distressfully sleeping the
sleep of the spent after a period of the most profound physical
agitation, "he does not like to have it, too,--I mean either."
Nancy had propped the little girl up on improvised pillows made of
coats and wraps swathed in towels and covered her with some strips of
canton flannel designed to use as "hushers" under the table
covers. As soon as the intense discomfort and nausea that had
followed the first period of faintness had passed, Nancy had
slipped off the shabby satin dress, made like the long-sleeved
kitchen apron of New England extraction, and attired the child in a
craftily simulated night-gown of table linen. Collier Pratt had
worked with her, deftly supplementing all her efforts for his little
girl's comfort until she had fallen into the exhausted sleep from
which she was only now rousing and beginning to chatter. Her father
had left her, still sleeping soundly, in Nancy's care, and gone
off to keep an appointment with a prospective picture buyer. He had
made no comment on Nancy's sudden impulsive offer to take the child
in charge, and neither she nor he had referred to the matter again.
"Are you comfortable now, Sheila?" Nancy asked. She had expected the
child to have a French name, Suzanne or Japonette or something equally
picturesque, but she realized as soon as she heard it that Sheila was
much more suitable. The cloudy blue-black hair, and steel-blue eyes,
the slight elongation of the space between the upper lip and nose, the
dazzling satin whiteness of the skin were all Irish in their
suggestion. Was the child's mother--that other natural protector of
the child, who had died or deserted her--Nancy tried not to wonder too
much which it was that she had done,--an Irish girl, or was Collier
Pratt himself of that romantic origin?
"_Oui_, Mademoiselle, I mean, yes, thank you. I do not think I will
say to you Miss Martin. We only say their names like that to the
people with whom we are not _intime_. We are _intime_ now, aren't we,
now that I have been so very sick _chez vous_? In Paris the
_concierge_ had a daughter that I called Mademoiselle Cherie, and we
were _very intime_. I think I would like to call you Miss Dear in
English after her."
"I should like that very much," Nancy said.
"I am glad the sick gentleman is called Gaspard. So many _messieurs_--I
mean gentlemen in Paris are called Gaspard, and hardly any in the
United States of America. American things are very different from
things in Paris, don't you think so, Miss Dear?"
"I'm afraid they are," Nancy acquiesced gravely.
"I'm afraid they are too," the child said, "but afraid is what I try
not to be of them. My father says America is full of beasts and
devils, but he does not mind because he can paint them."
"Do you live in a studio?" Nancy asked after a struggle to prevent
herself from asking the question. She felt that she had no right to
any of the facts about Collier Pratt's existence that he did not
choose to volunteer for himself.
"Yes, Miss Dear, but not like Paris. There we had a door that opened
into a garden, and the birds sang there, and I was allowed to go and
play. Here we have only a fire-escape, and the _concierge_ is only a
janitor and will not allow us to keep milk bottles on it. I do not
like a janitor. _Concierges_ have so much more _politesse_. Now, no
one takes care of me when father goes out, or brings me soup or
_gâteaux_ when he forgets."
"Does he forget?" Nancy cried, horrified.
"Sometimes. He forgets himself, too, very often except dinner. He
remembers that because he likes to come to this Outside Inn
restaurant, where the cooking is so good. He brought me here to-day
because it was my birthday. I think the cooking is very good except
that I was so sick of eating it, but father swore to-day that it was
not."
"Swore?"
"He said damn. That is not very bad swearing. I think _nom de Dieu_ is
worse, don't you, Miss Dear?"
"I'm going to take you up in my arms," said Nancy with sudden passion.
"I want to feel how thin you are, and I want to feel how you--feel."
"Why, your eyes are wetting," the little girl exclaimed as she nestled
contentedly against Nancy's breast, where Nancy had gathered her,
converted table-cloth and all.
"It's your not having enough to eat," Nancy cried. "Oh! baby child,
honey. How could they? It's your calling me Miss Dear, too," she said.
"I--I can't stand the combination."
The child patted her cheek consolingly.
"Don't cry," she said; "my father cries because I get so hungry, when
he forgets, but he does forget again as soon."
"Would you like to come and live with me, Sheila?" Nancy asked.
"I think so, Miss Dear."
"Then you shall," Nancy said devoutly.
Collier Pratt found his child in Nancy's arms when he again mounted
the stairs to the third floor of Outside Inn. The place was curiously
cool to one who had been walking the sun-baked streets, and he gave an
appreciative glance at the dim interior and the tableau of woman and
child. Nancy's burnished head bent gravely over the shadowy dark one
resting against her bosom.
"All right again, is she?" he inquired with the slow rare smile that
Nancy had not seen before that day.
"Yes," Nancy said, "she's better. She's under-nourished, that's what
the trouble is."
"I suspected that," Collier Pratt said ruefully. "I'm not specially
talented as a parent. I feed her passionately for days, and then I
stop feeding her almost entirely. Artists in my circumstances eat
sketchily at best. The only reason that I am fed with any regularity
is that I have the habit of coming to this restaurant of yours. By the
way, is it yours? I found you in charge to-day to my amazement."
"I am in charge to-day," Nancy acknowledged; "in fact I have taken
over the management of it for--for a friend."
"The mysterious philanthropist."
"Ye-es."
"Then I will refrain from any comment on the lunch to-day."
"Oh! that--that was a mistake," Nancy cried, "an experiment. Gaspard
the _chef_--was ill."
"He was very ill, father, dear," Sheila added gravely, "like crossing
the Channel, much sicker than I was. I was only sick like crossing the
ocean, you know."
"These fine distinctions," Collier Pratt said, "she's much given to
them." His eyes narrowed as they rested again on the picture Nancy
made--the cool curve of her bent neck, the rise and fall of the
breast in which the breathing had quickened perceptibly since his
coming,--the child swathed in the long folds of white linen outlined
against the Madonna blue of the dress that she was wearing. Nancy
blushed under the intentness of his gaze, understanding, thanks to
Caroline's report of his conversation with Betty, something of
what was in his mind about her.
"Gaspard is going to be taken away in an ambulance," the child said,
"to the hospital."
"Then who is going to cook my dinner?" Collier Pratt asked.
"Good lord, I don't know," Nancy cried, roused to her responsibilities.
She looked at the watch on her wrist, a platinum bracelet affair with
an octagonal face that Dick had persuaded her to accept for a
Christmas present by giving one exactly like it to Betty and Caroline.
It was twenty-five minutes of five. Dinner was served every night
promptly at half past six, and there was absolutely no preparation
made for it, not so much as a loaf of bread ordered. Instead of doing
the usual marketing in the morning she had sent Michael out for the
things that she needed in the preparation of luncheon, and planned to
make up a list of things that she needed for dinner just as soon as
her midday duties in the kitchen had set her free. She thought that
she would be more like Gaspard, "inspired to buy what is right" if she
waited until the success of her luncheon had been assured. The ensuing
events had driven the affairs of her cuisine entirely out of her mind.
She was constrained by her native tendency to concentrate on the
business in hand to the exclusion of all other matters, big and
little. She had dismissed Betty during the excitement that followed
Sheila's illness, and Betty had seemed unnaturally willing to leave
the hectic scene and go about her business. Michael had made several
ineffectual attempts to speak to her, but she had waved him away
impatiently. She knew that neither he nor any one else on the
restaurant staff would believe that she hadn't made some adequate and
mysterious provision for the serving of the night meal. She had never
failed before in the smallest detail of executive policy. She set the
child back upon the cushion, and arranged her perfunctorily in
position there.
"I don't know _what_ you are going to have for dinner," she said,
"much less who's going to cook it for you."
"Perhaps I had better arrange to have it elsewhere, since this seems
to be literally the cook's day out."
"There'll be dinner," said Nancy uncertainly.
Dick came up the stairs three at a time, and in his wake she heard the
murmur of women's voices--Caroline's and Betty's.
"I heard you were in difficulties," Dick said, "so I made Sister Betty
and Caroline give up their perfectly good trip into the country, in
order to come around and mix in."
"I didn't know Betty was going driving with you," Nancy said. "She
didn't say so. Oh! Dick, there isn't any dinner. I forgot all about
it. This is Mr. Collier Pratt and his little daughter,--Mr. Richard
Thorndyke. She's coming to live with me soon, I hope, and let Hitty
take care of her."
The two men shook hands.
"Hold on a minute," Dick said, "that paragraph is replete with
interest, but I want to get it assimilated. Sure, Betty was going
driving with me. I told her to ask you if she thought it would be any
use, but she allowed it wouldn't. I am delighted to meet Mr. Pratt,
and pleased to know that his daughter is coming to live with you, but
isn't that rather sudden? Also, what's this about there not being any
dinner?"
"There isn't," Nancy was beginning, when she realized that Caroline
and Betty, who had followed closely on Dick's footsteps, were looking
at her with faces pale with consternation and alarm. She could see the
anticipatory collapse of Outside Inn writ large on Caroline's
expressive countenance. Caroline was the type of girl who believed
that in the very nature of things the undertakings of her most
intimate friends were doomed to failure. "There isn't any dinner yet,"
Nancy corrected herself, "but you go up to my place, Dick, and get
Hitty. Tell her she's got to cook dinner for this restaurant to-night.
She can cook three courses of anything she likes, and have _carte
blanche_ in the kitchen. You have more influence with her than
anybody, so, no matter what she says, make her do it. Then when she
decides what she wants to cook, drive her around until she collects
her ingredients. She won't let anybody do the marketing for her."
"All right," Dick said, "I'll do my best."
"You'll have to do more than that," Betty laughed as he started off,
"but you're perfectly capable of it. How do you do, Mr. Pratt? This is
Miss Eustace, pale with apprehension about the way things are going,
but still recognizable and answering to her name." Betty always
enjoyed introducing Caroline with an audacious flourish, since
Caroline always suffered so much in the process.
"And this is little Miss Sheila Pratt," Nancy supplemented.
"_Enchanté_," the little girl said, "I mean, I am very pleased to meet
you. I was very sick, but I am better now, and I am going to live with
Miss Dear."
"It seems to be settled," her father said, shrugging.
"Would you mind it so very much?" Nancy asked.
"I wouldn't mind it at all," Collier Pratt said. "I think it would be
a delightful arrangement,--if I'm to take you seriously."
"Nancy is always to be taken seriously," Betty put in. "What she
really wants of the child is to use her for dietetic experiment, I'm
sure."
"That's what she's used to, poor child," Collier Pratt said ruefully.
The removal of Gaspard created a diversion. Nancy took Sheila in to
bid him good-by, and the great creature was so touched by the farewell
kiss that she imprinted on his forehead, and the revelation of the
fact that a fellow being had been suffering kindred throes in the
chamber just beyond his own that he was of two minds about letting
himself be moved at all from her proximity. A group of waitresses
collected on the second landing, and Nancy and her friends stood
together at the head of the stairs while the white-coated intern from
the hospital rolled his great bulk upon a fragile-looking stretcher,
and with the assistance of all the male talent in the establishment,
managed to head him down the stairs, and so on across the court and
into the waiting ambulance.
Nancy's eyes filled with inexplicable tears, and she caught Collier
Pratt regarding them with some amusement.
"He's such a dear," she said somewhat irrelevantly. "I really didn't
care whether he was sick or not this morning,--but you get so fond of
people that are around all the time."
"I don't," said Collier Pratt,--he spoke very lightly, but there was
something in his tone that made Nancy want to turn and look at him
intently. She seemed to see for the first time a shade of defiant
cruelty in his face,--"I don't," he reiterated.
"I do," Nancy repeated stubbornly, but as she met his slow smile, the
slight impression of unpleasantness vanished.
"We artists are selfish people," he said. "I'm going to run away now,
and leave my daughter to cultivate your charming friends. Will you
come and eat your dinner at my little table to-night, and talk,
discuss this matter of her visit to you?"
"I will if there is any dinner," Nancy said, putting out a throbbing
hand to him.
There was a dinner. It was Hitty's conception of an emergency
meal--the kind of thing that her mother before her had prepared on
wash-day when an unexpected relative alighted from the noon train, and
surprised her into inadvertent hospitality. It began with steamed
clams and melted butter sauce. Hitty knew a fish market where the
clams were imported direct from Cape Cod by the nephew of a man who
used to go to school with her husband's brother, and he warranted
every clam she bought of him. They were served in soup plates and the
drawn butter in demi-tasses, but Hitty would have it no other way. The
_pièce de résistance_ was ham and eggs, great fragrant crispy slices
of ham browned faintly gold across their pinky surface, and
eggs--Hitty knew where to get country eggs, too--so white, so
golden-yolked, so tempting that it was difficult to associate them
with the prosaic process of frying, but fried they were. With them
were served boiled potatoes in their jackets,--no wash-day cook ever
removed the peeling from an emergency potato,--and afterward a course
of Hitty's famous huckleberry dumplings, the lightest, most ephemeral
balls of dumplings that were ever dipped into the blue-black deeps of
hot huckleberry--not blueberry, but country huckleberry--sauce.
"Where's the coffee?" Nancy asked Dolly miserably, when the
humiliating meal was drawing to its close.
"She won't make coffee," Dolly whispered; "she says it will keep
everybody awake, and they're much better off without it, but Miss
Betty, she's watching her chance, and she's making it."
Collier Pratt had received each course in silence, but had eaten
heartily of the food that was set before him.
"I suppose he was hungry enough to eat anything," Nancy thought; "the
lunch was humiliating enough, but this surpasses anything I dreamed
of."
She had given up trying to estimate the calories that each man was
likely to average in partaking of Hitty's menu. She noticed that a
great many of her patrons had taken second helpings, and that threw
her out in her calculation of quantities, while the relative
digestibility of the protein and the fats in pork depend so much upon
its preparation that she could not approximate the virtue of Hitty's
bill of fare without consultation with Hitty.
"That was a very excellent dinner," Collier Pratt broke through her
painful reverie to make his pronouncement. "Astonishing, but very
satisfactory. It reminds me of days on my grandfather's farm when I
was a youngster."
"I should think it might," Nancy said, for the first time in her
relation with her new friend becoming ironical on her own account.
Then she added seriously, "It's Hitty, you know, that will have all
the real care of Sheila. I'm pretty busy down here, and I--" she
hesitated, half expecting him to threaten to remove his child at once
from the prospective guardianship of a creature who reverted so
readily to the barbarism of ham and eggs.
"Well, if it's Hitty that is to have the care of Sheila," Collier
Pratt said, and Nancy was not longer puzzled as to which element of
her parentage Sheila owed her Irish complexion, "why, more power to
her!"
Nancy dreamed that night that she was married to Dick, and that Hitty
made and served them _pâté de foies gras_ dumplings, while Collier
Pratt in freckles and overalls sat in a high chair, and had his dinner
with the family. Later it was discovered that Betty had poisoned his
bread and milk, and he died in Nancy's arms in dreadful agony,
swearing in a beautiful Irish brogue that in all his life he had never
looked at another woman,--which even in her dream seemed to Nancy a
somewhat irreconcilable statement.