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POLLY
OF LADY GAY COTTAGE
BY
EMMA C. DOWD
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY EMMA C. DOWD
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
[Illustration: HAROLD WESTWOOD!]
TO
MY CRITIC, COUNSELOR
AND COMRADE
CONTENTS
I. THE ROSEWOOD BOX 1
II. LEONORA'S WONDERFUL NEWS 12
III. A WHIFF OF SLANDER 20
IV. COUSINS 36
V. A MONOPOLIST AND A FANFARON 46
VI. "NOT FOR SALE" 66
VII. THE BLIZZARD 73
VIII. THE INTERMEDIATE BIRTHDAY PARTY 89
IX. THE EIGHTH ROSE 105
X. A VISIT FROM ERASTUS BEAN 119
XI. UNCLE MAURICE AT LADY GAY COTTAGE 125
XII. LITTLE CHRIS 138
XIII. ILGA BARRON 152
XIV. POLLY IN NEW YORK 165
XV. AN UNEXPECTED GUEST 175
XVI. ROSES AND THORNS 184
XVII. A SUMMER NIGHT MYSTERY 194
XVIII. AT MIDVALE SPRINGS 212
XIX. TWO LETTERS 237
XX. MRS. JOCELYN'S DINNER-PARTY 250
POLLY OF LADY GAY COTTAGE
CHAPTER I
THE ROSEWOOD BOX
The telephone bell cut sharp into Polly's story.
She was recounting one of the merry hours that Mrs. Jocelyn had given
to her and Leonora, while Dr. Dudley and his wife were taking their
wedding journey. Still dimpling with laughter, she ran across to the
instrument; but as she turned back from the message her face was
troubled.
"Father says I am to come right over to the hospital," she told her
mother. "Mr. Bean--you know, the one that married Aunt Jane--has got
hurt, and he wants to see me. I hope he isn't going to die. He was
real good to me that time I was there, as good as he dared to be."
"I will go with you," Mrs. Dudley decided.
And, locking the house, they went out into the early evening darkness.
The physician was awaiting them in his office.
"Is he badly hurt?" asked Polly anxiously. "What does he want to see
me for?"
"We are afraid of internal injury," was the grave answer. "He was on
his way to you when the car struck him."
"To me?" Polly exclaimed.
"He was fetching a little box that belonged to your mother. Do you
recollect it--a small rosewood box?"
"Oh, yes!" she cried. "I'd forgotten all about it--there's a wreath of
tiny pearl flowers on the cover!"
The Doctor nodded.
"Mr. Bean seems to attach great value to the box or its contents."
"Oh, what is in it?"
"I don't know. But he kept tight hold of it even after he was knocked
down, and it was the first thing he called for when he regained
consciousness. I thought he had better defer seeing you until
to-morrow morning; but he wouldn't hear to it. So I let him have his
own way."
"Have you sent word to Aunt Jane?" inquired Polly, instinctively
shrinking from contact with the woman in whose power she had lived
through those dreadful years.
Dr. Dudley gave a smiling negative. "He begged me not to let her
know."
"I don't blame him!" Polly burst out. "I guess he's glad to get away
from her, if he did have to be hurt to do it."
"Probably he wishes first to make sure that the box is in your hands,"
observed the Doctor, rising. "She will have to be notified. Come, we
will go upstairs. The sooner the matter is off Mr. Bean's mind, the
better."
Polly was dismayed at sight of the little man's face. In their
whiteness his pinched features seemed more wizen than ever. But his
smile of welcome was eager.
"How do you do, my dear? My dear!" the wiry hand was extended with
evident pain.
Polly squeezed it sympathetically, and told him how sorry she was for
his accident.
Mr. Bean gazed at her with tender, wistful eyes.
"My little girl was 'most as big as you," he mused. "Not quite; she
wasn't but six when she--went. But you look consider'ble like
her--wish't I had a picture o' Susie! I wish't I had!" He drew his
breath hard.
Polly patted the wrinkled hand, not knowing what to say.
"But I've got a picture here you'll like," the little man brightened.
"Yer'll like it first-rate."
His hand moved gropingly underneath the bed covers, and finally
brought out the little box that Polly instantly recognized.
"Oh, thank you! How pretty it is!" She received it with a radiant
smile.
Mr. Bean's face grew suddenly troubled.
"Yer mustn't blame Jane too much," he began pleadingly. "I guess she
kind o' dassent give it to yer, so long afterwards. It's locked,"--as
Polly pulled at the cover,--"and there ain't no key," he mourned. "I
do' know what Jane's done with it. Yer'll have to git another,--there
wa'n't no other way." His voice was plaintive.
"That's all right," Polly reassured him.
The pleasure of once more holding the little box in her hand was
enough for the moment.
"I see it in her bureau drawer the day we was first married," he went
on reminiscently, "an' she opened it and showed me what was in it.
Ther' 's a picture of yer mother--"
"Oh!" Polly interrupted excitedly, "of mamma?"
"Yis, so she said. Looks like you, too,--same kind o' eyes. It was
goin' to be for your birthday--that's what she had it took for, Jane
said."
Polly had been breathlessly following his words, and now broke out in
sudden reproach:--
"Oh! why didn't Aunt Jane let me have it! How could she keep it, when
I wanted a picture of mamma so!"
The reply did not come at once. A shadow of pain passed over the man's
face, leaving it more drawn and pallid.
"It's too bad!" he lamented weakly. "I tol' Jane so then; but she
thought 'twould kind o' upset yer, likely, and so--" His voice
faltered. He began again bravely. "You mustn't blame Jane too much, my
dear! Jane's got some good streaks, real good streaks."
Polly looked up from the little box. Her eyes were wet, but she smiled
cheerfully into the anxious face.
"I ought not to blame her, now she's sent it," she said sweetly; "and
I thank you ever so much for bringing it."
A hint of a smile puckered the thin lips.
"Guess if I'd waited f'r her to send it," he murmured, "'t 'ud been
the mornin' Gabriel come! But Jane's got her good streaks," he
apologized musingly.
Then he lay silent for a moment, feeling after courage to go on.
"Ther' 's a letter, too," he finally hazarded. "Jane said it was about
some rich relations o' yours some'er's--I forgit where. She said
likely they wouldn't care nothin' 'bout you, seein' 's they never'd
known yer, and it would only put false notions into yer head, and so
she didn't"--he broke off, his eyes pleading forgiveness for the woman
whose "good streaks" needed constant upholding.
But Polly was quite overlooking Aunt Jane. This astonishing bit of
news had thrown her mind into a tumult, and she breathlessly awaited
additional items.
They were slow in coming, and she grew impatient.
"What relatives are they?" she prodded. "Papa's, or mamma's?"
Mr. Bean could not positively say. He had not read the letter, and
recollected little that his wife had told him.
"Seems kind o' 's if they was Mays," he mused; "but I ain't noways
sure. Anyhow they was millionaires, Jane said she guessed, and she was
afraid 't 'ud spile yer to go and live with 'em,--"
At this juncture Dr. Dudley interposed, his fingers trying his
patient's pulse.
"No more visiting to-night," he smiled, yet the smile was grave and of
short life.
Polly went away directly, carrying the little rosewood box, after
again expressing her grateful thanks to Mr. Bean.
Down in the office her tongue ran wild, until her mother was quite as
excited as she. But there was a difference; Polly's wondering thoughts
flew straight to her lips, Mrs. Dudley's stayed in her heart, restless
and fearsome.
Next morning the injured man seemed no worse, though the physicians
still had grave doubts of his recovery. Dr. Dudley, while appreciating
Mr. Bean's kind intentions towards Polly, and putting out of account
the serious accident, grimly wished to himself that the little man had
suffered the rosewood box to remain hidden in his wife's bureau
drawer. Of course, Polly was legally his own, yet these unknown
relatives of hers,--with what convincing arguments might they confront
him, arguments which he could not honestly refute! Yet he carried the
box to the locksmith's, and he conjectured cheerfully with Polly
regarding the contents of the letter.
Late in the afternoon he put both box and key into Polly's hands.
"Oh!" she squealed delightedly. "Have you opened it?"
"Most certainly not. That pleasure is left for you."
She eagerly placed the key in the lock, and carefully raised the
cover.
A folded tissue paper lay on top, which she caught up, and the
photograph was disclosed.
"Mamma!" she half sobbed, pressing the picture to her lips.
But Dr. Dudley scarcely noticed her emotion, for the displacement
of the card had revealed only an empty box--the letter was gone!
He looked across at his wife, and their eyes met in perfect
understanding. The moment they had both dreaded was postponed, and
they felt a sudden relief. Still, there had been a letter, the Doctor
silently reasoned, and sooner or later its contents must be faced.
"See!" Polly was holding before him the portrait of a lovely, girlish
woman, with dark, thoughtful eyes and beautiful, curving mouth.
"It looks just like her!" came in tremulous tones. "Isn't she sweet?"
She leaned lightly against her father, drawing a long breath of joy
and sorrow.
As he threw his arm about her, the Doctor could feel her efforts to be
calm.
"But where's the letter?" she asked, with sudden recollection, turning
from their satisfying praise of the one she loved, to gaze into the
empty box. She regarded it disappointedly when she heard the truth.
"Now I shan't ever know," she lamented, "whether I have any
grandfather or grandmother, or uncles or aunts,--or anybody! And I
thought, may be, there'd be some cousins too! But, then," she went on
cheerfully, "it isn't as if the letter was from somebody I'd ever
known. I'm glad it is that that's lost, instead of this," clasping the
photograph to her heart.
Mrs. Dudley glanced over to her husband. "Better not tell her!" his
eyes said, and her own agreed. It seemed that Polly did not dream of
what was undoubtedly the case,--that the letter was from her mother,
written as a birthday accompaniment to the picture, and giving
hitherto withheld information concerning her kindred.
It was far better for Polly's peace of heart that the probable truth
was not even surmised, and presently she carried the photograph up to
her own little room, there to feast her eyes upon the well-remembered
face until time was forgotten.