CLAIMED AND CALLED FOR
In the wake of the grinning black porter, Caroline stumbled out of the
drawing-room. She had only a few steps to take through the narrow
passage to the vestibule, and in those few steps she hadn't time enough
to reconsider, and call up her courage and run back to Jacqueline, with
a refusal to go on with this naughty deception. She had time only to
feel, in Jacqueline's finery, like the poor little old woman in the
nursery-song:
Lawkamussy on me,
This can't be I!
Then she stood in the swaying, cinder-powdered vestibule. Through the
open door she saw the dark red walls of a country station creeping by
and people hurrying to be alongside the steps when the car should stop.
Strange people--hundreds of people, they seemed to her. Oh, she wanted
her half-aunt--she even wanted the cows! Jacqueline's Great-aunt Eunice
would be terrible. She would know at once that Caroline was a little
fraud. She would send her away to an Institution.
But now there was no turning back. The train had stopped. The porter had
leaped nimbly off. A stout man in the vestibule behind Caroline was
bumping her silken calves with his heavy bag, and fuming at her for
blocking the way. Caroline clutched Mildred tight to the bosom of
Jacqueline's henna-colored frock, and scrambled down the steep steps of
the car. She was glad that the porter steadied her with a hand on her
arm. She felt so sick and dizzy that she could scarcely see.
A tall lady was beside her instantly. In the strong sunlight of the
station platform, so different from the stuffy dusk of the train,
Caroline could not make out her features but she had an impression of
white clothes and she caught the scent of violets.
"This is Jacqueline, isn't it?" the lady said, in a clear, low voice.
Caroline nodded, blinking between tears and sun-blindness.
"You're Great-aunt Eunice?" she faltered.
"No, my dear," said the low voice, with a ripple of laughter in it.
"She's waiting over there in the car. Bring along her things, Frank.
Come quickly, Jacqueline! Let's get out of this frightful press."
The stout man had bumped the lady with his clumsy bag, and his gruff
"Beg pardon!" did not seem in the least to mollify her. She put her
gloved hand on Caroline's shoulder and hurried her away across the wide
platform, with its pillared red roof.
In the shade of the elm trees at the other side of the platform a
stately limousine was parked among humbler touring cars and sedans. A
stout elderly lady looked eagerly from the window.
One desperate glance Caroline cast behind her. She saw a self-assured
small figure, in a scant brown and white gingham dress, propel itself
down the car steps, behind a big shabby suitcase. She saw a
squarely-built woman in an old straw hat hurrying toward the car steps,
and she saw the little figure cast itself into her arms. Jacqueline had
taken possession of half-aunt Martha.
Caroline had no chance to see more, for now she was at the side of the
limousine.
"Mother, here's Jacqueline," said the lady in white, who was evidently
Jacqueline's Cousin Penelope. "This is Aunt Eunice, Jacqueline."
The old lady, who wore gray clothes and had pretty white hair, nodded
and smiled at Caroline from her cozy seat. But Caroline, all confusion
and on the verge of tears, had no time to greet her, for Cousin Penelope
asked just then for the trunk-check.
"It's here--in my bag," quavered Caroline, as she struggled with the
unfamiliar clasp of Jacqueline's vanity bag.
"Do help her, Penelope. She's tired out, poor little mite," said Aunt
Eunice.
Cousin Penelope took the bag in her brisk way, and opened it. She made a
queer little face, as she saw the very grown-up small vials and
powder-puff inside, but she said nothing. By instinct, probably, she
opened the little purse and took out the trunk-check and gave it to her
chauffeur, who came up at that moment with the hand-luggage.
"Tell them to send the trunk up by express," she bade him. "Jump in,
Jacqueline. We'll be away from this wretched hot station in a couple of
minutes now."
Caroline stepped gingerly into the limousine. With its cool gray
upholstery, its little side-pockets full of bottles and notebooks, its
hanging crystal vase of marguerites, it seemed to her a little palace on
wheels. She sank upon the cushions with a sigh of relief.
"You _are_ tired, you poor little thing," said Aunt Eunice. "Now just
rest. We won't trouble you with questions about the journey. You're here
safe--that's all that really matters."
Caroline nestled back in her seat and hugged Mildred to her. The train
that had sheltered her had pulled out of the station. Jacqueline, her
dear and dangerous friend of twenty-four hours, was gone. She had
nothing left but Mildred.
Cousin Penelope stepped into the car in a regal manner. Her dress was of
soft shimmery white, and she wore a sweater coat of mauve silk, and a
white hat with a mauve silk scarf about the crown. A faint scent of
violets breathed from her when she moved. Why, she wasn't old like Aunt
Eunice, as Jacqueline had said she would be. She was young--not so
young, perhaps, as Caroline's beloved Sunday School teacher, but still
young, and such a pretty lady!
Frank, the well-trained chauffeur, came at a military gait across the
sunny station platform. He closed the door of the car, then stepped to
his seat. A moment later the great car glided--oh, so smoothly and
softly!--away from the platform and under the elms of the station park
into a wide street where two-story brick buildings cast long shadows in
the late afternoon light.
"Where are we going?" Caroline wondered. "Oh, I hope it's ever so far.
If I could only sit here with Mildred forever and ever."
Cousin Penelope pulled up a window.
"I _know_ the air is too much for you, Mother," she said crisply.
Aunt Eunice seemed rather to sigh but she offered no protest.
"By the way, Jacqueline," Cousin Penelope turned to Caroline who sat
between the two ladies, "I didn't see that Miss Fisher, who was to look
after you from Chicago. I wished of course to thank her."
"She got off at Pittsfield," Caroline managed to find her tongue.
"Indeed!" said Cousin Penelope in an icy voice. What things she could
evidently have said to Miss Fisher!
"And left you to travel by yourself?" cried Aunt Eunice. "No wonder
she's tired and upset, Penelope, all alone like that."
"I--I played with a little girl," explained Caroline, "and I always have
Mildred."
"Is that your dolly's name?" Aunt Eunice asked quickly.
Caroline nodded.
Aunt Eunice patted her hand with her soft plump palm.
"It's nice to see a little girl that loves dolls," she said. "Not many
of them do, nowadays."
She smiled at Caroline, and Caroline, looking up at her, smiled back. It
didn't matter whether she were Jacqueline or Caroline--she knew that she
was going to like Aunt Eunice.