In the long moment during which Mrs. Cabot leveled her astonished stare
upon the applicant as governess to her son, the girl did not breathe.
When direct demand was made of her she could not speak.
“Tell me, is coming here your own idea? Or did my husband----?”
The smart vision in black and white interrupted herself by an
over-shoulder invitation.
“Come in, Henri. Be moved to admiration of my John. Even you will
concede that he is improving.”
To the personage in blue-gray uniform who clattered at her side, she
added:
“You have the privilege of viewing at close range the famed Dolores
Trent.”
“Ah, the mademoiselle which Meestaire Cabot have rescue?” inquired the
French cavalry officer.
“The same. Is there anything like rescuing a lady, my dear d’Elie, to
excite a man’s interest in her? He is pleased with her because pleased
with himself--so pleased that he wants to keep right on rescuing her.
I might have known that John would locate the disappearing heroine of
his hero act sooner or later. But how naïvely American to try to make a
convenience of his own home!”
In Dolores’ silence Mrs. Morrison denied the charge.
“Miss Trent was sent here through Madame Sheehan’s agency, to which I
frequently apply. Up to the moment you came in just now, Mrs. Cabot,
she thought me the mother of the child in need of a governess. I assure
you that Mr. Cabot had nothing to do with her application.”
An arpeggio of light laughter, accompanied by a bass chord, greeted
this defense.
“No use talking, she’s _good_, isn’t she?” Mrs. Cabot asked her escort,
before turning directly to Dolores. “But I fear, Miss Trent, that
you’re not quite good enough. A mother owes something to her child,
even though a father thinks that he does not. I thank you for coming.
You have succeeded better than our parson friend’s lynx in giving me a
rare sensation--that of surprise. I wish you a very good morning.”
Dolores rose; heard a quiet voice making her reply.
“And I am sorry that I came. I shouldn’t have done so had I understood.
I hope you will believe Mrs. Morrison, if not me, for Mr. Cabot’s sake.
Good morning.”
On her way to the entrance, the purport of a rapid exchange in French
between him named as d’Elie and Mrs. Cabot was forced upon her
realization.
“Pardon, adored one, but have you considered the other needs of your
household?”
“What other needs could there be in which this celebrated miss is
concerned?”
“Only yesterday madame was saying that her husband seemed afflicted
with ennui--that it might be advisable to stimulate his interest
in life. Might it not prove pleasant, my angel, if the father of
the infant terrible should find the new governess--shall I say,
_congenial_?”
“Enough, my clever Henri. I understand.”
So complete was the change of manner with which Mrs. Cabot stopped the
girl at the door that a more experienced person could scarcely have
been blamed for bewilderment. Her cynical expression was lost in a
humid smile. Her voice softened. She tossed aside the crop with which
she had been swishing the air to extend the hand of appeal.
“The Marquis d’Elie has criticized my lack of charity,” she
said. “Perhaps I _am_ wrong to jump at conclusions. And it is a
responsibility to send a mere child like you back into a world which
already has been rather hard on her. Then, too, my unfortunate
offspring is to be considered. It is quite possible that he might get
along better with a young person than the nursery monitors he so often
has defeated. I wonder if you are as amiable as you look--if you could
forgive the hasty things I said just now?”
Dolores did not know what to think, still less what to say. She parried
by a question which interested her.
“You call your son unfortunate. What is the matter with him?”
Catherine Cabot’s first talent was that of taking. Whatever she wanted
in life she took as her perquisite. Always had she taken admiration,
service, flattery, love, sacrifice, money. Literally she had taken her
husband because he was useful to her. She proceeded now to take Dolores
Trent.
“Oh, my dear, if you could know how unfortunate! Most children have
some sort of a chance, but not my poor Jackie. Probably after you have
seen him and know something of the disposition that comes from his
sufferings, you won’t wish to undertake him. You would need a love for
children great enough to include the most unlovable.”
“But I have a great love for children,” Dolores said. “My neighbors
used to say that I have a way with them.”
“Mr. Cabot would be relieved of his heaviest burden if we’d find some
one who could handle Jack.” Catherine continued her “taking.” “It would
seem like a fatality, wouldn’t it, if in return for his small service
to you that day at Seff’s----”
“His service wasn’t small, Mrs. Cabot. I may have seemed ungrateful not
to thank him, but I---- You see----”
“Of course you couldn’t and of course he didn’t wish you to,” the
wife assured her. “But it would be really beautiful--sort of nice and
Emersonian--if you could pass along the favor he did you to his child.
Suppose you hold an open mind, Miss Trent, until after you’ve met Jack.
I’ll come to his rooms later and help to explain him. Morrison will
take up all details with you, if you should decide to stay. Won’t you
try, anyhow, to forget and forgive my unkindness?”
The girl, still standing just within the door, heard the Frenchman’s
congratulation, as the brilliant-looking pair disappeared among the
palms of the foyer.
“But you are wonderful, my adored one, most wonderful!”
* * * * *
As Dolores stepped off the elevator onto the third-floor balcony that
overlooked the great, glass-domed hall, a woman’s scream cut the quiet.
The housekeeper hurried ahead and threw open the door of a large,
sun-flooded room.
“He have bite me, Mees Morrison. But see this mark on my wrist. I
should regret to desert madame, but I give up my place rather than play
as the nurse one hour longer.”
The plaint arose from a be-capped young woman whom Dolores later
learned to be Annette, Mrs. Cabot’s maid, pressed into emergency
service. She had made a shield of a light chair between herself and the
boy of eight, or thereabouts, who was pursuing her. The bone of their
contention seemed to be a particularly boneless toy dog held above his
reach.
Dolores’ first view of John Cabot, Jr., was not heartening. His only
recognition of her presence was a scowl. In lurching forward over the
chair to recapture his plaything, he slipped and fell, with a shriek
more of chagrin than pain, upon the floor. When Morrison and Annette
rushed to his assistance, Dolores intervened. She asked that they leave
her alone with the boy.
After the closing click of the door she crossed to one of the windows;
seated herself in an upholstered chair; gave her attention to the park
view.
“Why don’t you come and pick me up?”
At the demand, she turned to see that Master Jack still sprawled on the
floor, his chin cupped in his hands, his unchildlike frown upon her.
“I didn’t suppose you’d wish to be picked up--a big boy like you,” she
said. “I didn’t suppose you’d even wish me to look at you.”
She regretted the ruse the moment she realized his physical handicap.
Having challenged his pride, however, she hesitated to retreat. But an
ache for him which never was entirely eased came into her heart as she
watched his efforts to achieve his feet; noted the warped condition of
his legs; watched his peculiar gait as he approached her--a slithering
forward of his feet, with no yield at his knees and hips.
Jack’s upper body was only fairly developed, yet by comparison with
his nether limbs his arms looked excessively long. His head, with its
luxurious growth of dark brown, slightly curling hair, was large as a
gnome’s. At the moment his features were twisted into an expression of
resentment. Only his eyes were beautiful, wide-set and Irish-gray in
color, with an outsweep of long, almost black lashes.
A certain embarrassment for him, which quickly followed the shock of
noting his deformity, caused Dolores to lift her eyes toward a square
object wrapped about with a bath towel, which was suspended from the
ceiling near the window.
“A bird?” she asked irrelevantly.
“A canary.” Master Jack now stood directly before her. “He sings so
much around noon-time, I bag him.”
“And don’t you like him to sing?”
“Of course not. He sounds too happy. Who are you, anyway?”
Dolores’ eyes filled with the wistfulness that always overflowed
her heart at thought of her own lonely childhood--her super-sad
little-girlhood.
“I am some one your mother has engaged to keep you company,” she told
him. “I do hope we can make a go of it, Jack. I certainly should
appreciate your friendship.”
“You’re not----” Suspicion stiffened his face. “Say, if you’re another
governess----”
“I’d rather be,” she interrupted, “sort of a pal.”
“But you couldn’t play boy’s games. What’s your name?”
“Dolores Trent. Dolores means grief.”
“’Lores--grief?”
His interest was caught, as had been Vincent Seff’s, by that “sad
little name” of hers. He hooked one hand to his hip like some shrunken
old man and studied her from beneath the graceful sweep of his lashes.
New objection occurred to him.
“My mother insists that I keep cheerful all the time. She mightn’t let
you stay if she knew your name meant grief. She hung Dick in here.
That’s one reason I don’t like him.”
“How you must love your mother, Jack--she’s so beautiful!”
“That’s no reason to love anybody,” came his startling statement. “I’ve
been living with my mother going on nine years now and she’s getting
kind of stale. I don’t mind your name--being kept cheerful all the time
is what I hate the most. I won’t stand it, I tell you!”
Dolores quieted his returning excitement with a shrug of compliance.
“Let’s just be miserable together, then.”
“Until that gets tiresome.” Even with the shrewd proviso, one corner of
the boy’s over-large mouth twitched, as if from humor. “Mind, I get my
own way,” he warned, “except when John’s home.”
“John?” she asked.
“My father. He’s the only person I respect, unless it is Clarke Shayle.
I don’t know, though. I think I like Clarke more than I respect him.
And then, of course, he hurts me a lot. Clarke’s my osteopath. He has
won five medals for swimming. John hasn’t any medals, but he doesn’t
need them. You sort of know that he could have all he wanted if he
wanted them.”
“And you let your father have his own way with you?”
“Of course, and not because he would punish me if I disobeyed him,
either. They say”--Jack drew up quaintly--“that John worships me. As
for me, I shouldn’t wish to offend him. We’re awfully chummy, my father
and I, although he’s very tall and strong and I----” Gulping, he
turned away. “See that wooden cradle in the corner? I’d never have it
in my rooms except that John was rocked in it when he was a baby. Seems
funny to think of John ever having been a baby, he’s so mannish now.”
The Colonial antique which had distracted the little fellow’s thoughts
from himself, was the first of many interesting treasures he showed
her. Mrs. Cabot had called the child’s quarters “rooms,” rather than
“nursery,” and they were, indeed, furnished incongruously for his
years. Except for a few mechanical toys, the suite might have been
that of some sophisticated bachelor. The chamber that opened off the
living room was filled with heirloom mahogany, the bed a fine example
of pineapple four-poster upon which not only his father’s father, but
also his great-grandfather had slept. Oil portraits of the paternal
line hung the walls. Turkish rugs lay upon the polished floors. An old
corner clock ticked away the time for this last of the Cabots as it had
for seven generations of the name before him. He particularly liked
the clock, Jack said, because it was calm-faced--not too sad, not too
happy--just calm.
To a large bowl of gold-fish twinkling lazily in the sunlight, he
invited her especial attention. They had been given him by Clarke
Shayle, he explained, to demonstrate the first principles of swimming.
“Clarke’s going to make a swimmer of me,” he asserted, “after he gets
me well. Oh, you needn’t look so sorry for me! I’ve got good arms,
haven’t I? You watch the gold-fish. They haven’t any legs.”
“Promise”--Dolores swallowed at the lump in her throat--“to give me one
of your medals as a souvenir some day?”
From a downward glance at his poor body, he stared at her suspiciously.
Evidently deciding that she was not making sport of him, he conceded:
“Of course it may be a while yet. And we mayn’t be friends that long.
That’s Clarke coming now for my treatment. I know his step.”
“Dr.” Shayle lacked the professional look. Although slightly above
medium height, he was heavy as he well could be without loss of the
athletic appearance for which Dolores had been prepared. He was young,
clean-shaved, redheaded, freckled. Next after his appearance of
strength, she noticed his cheerfulness. He had very clean teeth and
an engaging smile. Early in their interview, he laughed in a joyous,
lingering way, with a glance that coaxed her to share his amusement.
She noticed also in these first moments a yellowish fleck in the brown
iris of his right eye. It served to give him an oddly intent expression.
At once after Jack’s staid ceremony of introduction, he declared
excitedly that he would not be “mauled” to-day--that he could not be
forced into a treatment.
“Who wants to force you?” asked Shayle. “Do you think I enjoy wearing
myself all out? A hike will be better for you, anyhow, at the present
moment. Here, let me wind up that dog!”
His suggestion developed into a lesson in the slithering walk which
evidently was the afflicted lad’s chief hope of getting along through
life. The toy, over whose possession Jack had bitten the French maid’s
wrist, was a mechanical dog whose four legs worked, when set going,
with something the movement which the osteopath was cultivating in his
patient. The dog set the pace across the room; the boy did his best to
follow.
“If you’d hold your head straight, little chump, not so far to one
side, you’d be better balanced,” Shayle advised from his down-leaning,
critical inspection.
“I won’t and I never will.” Jack stopped to glare back at his trainer.
“John always holds his head to one side and I guess he walks all right.”
“Oh well, if John does! Like father like son--beautiful sentiment.” At
once the doctor passed the point. Giving up seemed to be his policy.
“That’s enough hiking for to-day, old scout. Just let me feel those
knee muscles. No, not a regular boy-handling on the bed. Just a touch
to see if they aren’t working better to-day.”
During the operation into which Shayle had inveigled his patient,
Dolores observed that his hands, while freckled and rather thick, were
drawn into slender fingers, pointed at the tips, with nails neatly
manicured.
“You’ve cheated--you’re hurting me like a real treatment!” shrieked
Jack and beat his practitioner in the face until able to wriggle out of
his grasp.
Dr. Shayle changed the subject as promptly as he gave up his attempt.
“Have a heart, Mister Dempsey. Wait a minute--I want to say something.
What’s become of the Cabot courtesy? You haven’t asked Miss Trent to
take off her things.”
“We were so busy getting acquainted!” Dolores, with a confidential
glance at the boy, lifted her hands to her hat.
“Allow me to make up for friend pugilist’s oversight.” With that
coaxing laugh of his, Shayle arose to help with the Duvetyn coat.
In the act, his hand touched the pulse at the side of her throat. With
the contact, a strange sensation quivered through her, disturbing, yet
somehow pleasant. Evidently he, too, had felt it. He looked straight
into her eyes a moment, his face suddenly serious.
“_Ah!_”
Oddly enough, that was all he said.
“Madame has a headache, Dr. Shayle. She wishes you to attend her as
soon as you have finish’ with the--with Master Jacques.”
The interruption came from Annette, the maid who had been bitten, now
serene of voice and immaculate in fresh cap and apron.
“What, another?”
Dolores heard the mutter which prefaced Shayle’s more formal
acknowledgment of the message. She was surprised at the headache and
told the doctor so. Mrs. Cabot had looked quite well on returning from
her ride.
Although he made no comment, she was struck by his expression and the
fact that it was reflected in the thin face of the boy--an expression
hard to define, but certainly not sympathetic.
After a luncheon served for Jack and herself in his sitting-room, the
boy was retired to his nap and she summoned to an interview with Mrs.
Morrison. She was not asked whether she would or would not stay. The
housekeeper seemed to have taken it for granted that she would. And
indeed, two realizations had settled the issue. Jack needed her and she
needed him.
She was shown a pleasant room farther along the third-floor balcony
and asked about her luggage. Her wages would be the same as paid the
previous governess. Mrs. Cabot regretted a slight indisposition, but
sent word that, as Dr. Shayle approved her start with Master Jack, she
was to use her own judgment.
The kindly housekeeper expressed a personal hope that she would be
happy and comfortable. She must come down to the ground-floor parlor
when lonely and must not fail to ask for anything she needed or wished.
Before the young heir had awakened, Dolores returned to the outer
room of the suite. She took up a magazine, but did not feel like
reading--got no farther than a page of kennel advertisements. Her eyes
upon a circle which had been penciled around the picture of a pedigreed
Airedale, she gave up to her thoughts.
Strange though it was, her present situation seemed natural. That she
should find herself in the home of the Cabots who, from among the great
cityfull had figured in both her previous engagements, impressed her
as nothing short of fatalistic. Blindfolded, she had faced in their
direction. Each of her stumbles had been a step toward the place made
ready for her. She had been prepared to appreciate what they had to
offer her; they what she could and would return. The third attempt to
earn her livelihood surely would prove the charm. Could it be possible
that only that morning she had set out, the end of her day a closed
book? This afternoon the book lay wide, its lines clearly typed. And
pleasant reading the future chapters looked, each day-page illumined
with the joy of doing for someone less fortunate than herself.
Until he spoke, she did not know that Jack was staring at her from the
bedroom doorway.
“You have a nicer nose than the last one. She left because I called her
‘Needle-nose Nannie’ to her face. She had the piercingest nose I ever
saw. I never asked my other governesses, but will you come with me on
my drive?”
Dolores was glad to go, the more so that he had suggested it. Already
she longed that he should love her. There seemed safety in the love of
a child.
In the open car from which he preferred to take his air when the
weather was fine, as he told her with his manner of a bored little
man of affairs, she scarcely could restrain the impulse to put her
arm around him. Appreciating, however, his oldishness, she contented
herself with finding his hand beneath the fur robe when a squirrel
excited them by dashing across the road in peril of their tires.
They did not drive for long. Sight of several children running races on
the green brought from the cripple a crisp order of “Home, Herrick!”
Dolores made no protest. She understood. But she held tight to the
gloved fingers beneath the robe.
“I never take any chances of missing John,” was the boy’s manufactured
explanation. “He comes up to see me first thing after he gets home.”
Back in his suite, the tedium of his shut-in life soon showed in
returning irritability.
“I do get so tired of women, women--always women! I don’t like them any
more than they like me. Why can’t they get me a man governess?” And
after a scowling moment: “What games do you know?”
Dolores did not know any. “Games” had been considered the least
necessary thing in her child life. Yet the moment was unpropitious
for admitting the lack. Urgently she applied to her imagination. A
smothered cheep from the towel-covered bird-cage brought inspiration.
“Did you ever try,” she asked, “a game called ‘Turn-about’?”
“No. How do you play it?”
“Another name for it is ‘Fair-Play.’ Turn-about is fair-play, you know.
First one of us--you or I--has his way. Then, turn-about, the other has
his.”
“Sounds like a queer game.” He considered a moment, as the
possibilities of the idea opened before him. “You can do anything you
like in your turn--all the naughty things you’ve wanted to do and
didn’t dare?”
“All of them--that is, all you still wish to do.”
“All right. First go!” A crafty look lit the gray eyes. Turning, he
shuffled across the room. “I’m going to do what your coming stopped
me from doing--break this dog. I hate--_hate_--HATE it! It is just a
stupid toy, but it goes faster than I can every time and it never hurts
at all.”
Without a word of protest, Dolores watched him hammer the floor with
the device which was at once his ambition and his despair; allowed him
to wrench it to pieces, legs from body and head from neck.
“My turn now,” she said. “I’m going to take the towel from around
Dick’s cage.”
Sagacity was evidenced in the boy’s instant retort. “Then I’ll take my
next turn putting it back again.”
“And keep the game at a standstill? I can repeat, remember, as often
as you,” Dolores warned him. Stepping down from the chair upon which
she had stood to let sunlight in upon the canary, now ruffling its
yellow plumage enjoyably, she seated herself and stayed his lifted
hand. “I want to tell you something, Jackie dear. Happiness is the most
attractive thing in the world and one of the hardest to have. Just
because your bird knows the secret of how to have it, even though shut
up in a smaller space than you, you are jealous. So long as you’re
jealous, you’ll never be happy. I’ve never been very happy either, but
I want to be and I’ve heard that happiness begets happiness. Maybe
if you and I would listen to Dick sing, we’d get the spirit of why he
sings. Maybe after a while we could be happy, too. What do you say?”
“I say it’s no fun being happy.”
Although he jerked his hand away and spoke defiantly, Dolores thought
she saw a gleam of interest in his eyes.
“Of course, you can try if you want to,” he added. “I’ll take my next
turn spilling the gold-fish. There’ll be plenty of time for Clarke to
get me some more before I’m strong enough to learn to swim.”
Heartsick, Dolores watched him stagger toward the bathroom with the
heavy glass bowl. She realized that, in steadying himself inside, he
was waiting for her to object. But she uttered no word of reproach as
he dumped the gleaming inmates and their small sea upon the tiling.
When she heard him chuckling over their squirms, she followed him.
“My turn!” She took the bowl from him, filled it with fresh water
and replaced within it the emptied moss and stones. Upon her knees
on the folded bath-rug, she invited his assistance in a way most
matter-of-fact “We must get them in quickly or they’ll die. Careful how
you scoop them up--their fins are very delicate. See how glad they are
to be back in the water again and how gracefully they swim!”
The boy was actually helping her when the opening of the hall door
interrupted. He steadied himself to his feet, then slithered into the
sitting-room. Still bent to her life-saving task, Dolores heard the
exchange without and saw, over-shoulder, the man-to-man hand-shake of
father and son.
“Hello, John Cabot!”
“Jack Cabot, hello!”
“I broke my dog, but you know the reason, John. I’d not mind so much if
a live one beat me. Aren’t you ever going to get me a real dog?”
“Your apology is accepted, Jack. But how could I know you’d be good to
a live dog if you had one? He would have to be considered as well as
you. They tell me you break all your toys. I’d hate to see the spirit
of a good dog broken. How can I be sure----”
“But I tell you I _would_ be good to him. Don’t I keep my word to you,
John? I’d never have spilled the fishes except that I had given in to
’Lores about Dick. Oh, you don’t know about ’Lores yet!”
The boy it was who brought them again face to face. Dolores had
reëntered the living-room. John Cabot stopped beside the center
table--stopped and looked across at her. Just what his look
meant--superstition, disapproval, fear--she could not be sure. Her
heart beat uncomfortably while she waited for him to speak.
“I was told down-stairs that a new governess had come,” he said, after
what seemed a long time. “I didn’t understand that it was you.”
“And I didn’t understand that the position was offered by you,” she
replied. “If you are displeased, Mr. Cabot, I will give up--Jack.”
“But I won’t give _her_ up, John, even if she is a woman-governess. She
knows games that I never heard about. If you’ll just get me an Airedale
now----”
The child’s demands broke the strain of the moment. John Cabot offered
his hand. The faint smile of his reassurance disappeared from his lips
when he read on the tiling the continuation of Jack’s story of the
gold-fish. Dolores studied him. Although a shadow lowered over his
eyes at this evidence of the evil temper of his son, he gave her an
impression of great kindness and great suppression. He looked like what
he really was--which, she had noticed, most men do not.
“I am afraid, my boy, that I could not trust a live dog to you,” he
said.
He was restoring the last of the stranded aquatics to comfort within
the bowl when a lilting laugh surprised the three. Mrs. Cabot,
evidently recovered from her headache, was watching them.