PENELOPE UNBENDS
Caroline went up to bed at half past eight in a happy daze. She had
played for ever so long in the parlor that at last was quite dark, Liszt
and Brahms, simple arrangements, of course, which her mother had
selected for her and then she had improvised rapturously, enjoying that
piano as a man who has gone thirsty for hours in the heat may enjoy (too
weak a word!) a draft of cool water.
At last Aunt Eunice had come and turned on the lights and told her it
was bed time. Was she afraid to go to bed alone?
Caroline smiled vaguely and said: "No!"
Then with Aunt Eunice's kiss on her cheek, she went up the stairs to her
wonderful room. She found a shaded electric light turned on, the
bedcover folded, the bedclothes turned down. A fresh nightgown from the
suitcase lay on the bed, and the blue leather traveling-case was on the
dressing-table.
Caroline undressed Mildred and put her in the fresh white bed. Oh, such
a contrast that bed was to the stuffy berth on the train, and the
rumpled bed with the thin mattress, all in lumps, that she had shared
with the oldest baby (fat and a terrible crowder!) at Cousin Delia's.
Then she went into the spick and span bathroom, and drew her own
bath--all the hot water she wanted. At Cousin Delia's the hot water
supply had had a bad trick of giving out after the four babies were
bathed and before it came Caroline's turn. But here there was hot water
and cold water and three kinds of soap. Caroline bathed luxuriously, and
dried herself on one of the huge soft towels and slipped on the fresh
nightgown (Jacqueline's nightgown!). Then she faced a problem that had
worried her, off and on, for the last half hour.
Toothbrush!
Of course the one in the blue leather traveling-case was Jacqueline's.
But to go to bed without washing one's teeth seemed to Caroline
impossible. She decided to look in the medicine closet. Perhaps she
would find in it some sort of mouth-wash that would help her through the
night, and then next day, with the money that was left in Jacqueline's
purse, she would buy a toothbrush.
There were all sorts of things in that Mother Robinson's bag of a
medicine closet; several kinds of fresh smelling soap in paper wrappers,
rolls of cotton, bottles of sweet oil and mouth-wash, boracic acid and
toilet-water. There were rolls of adhesive and jars of cold cream,
papers of pins and crystal clear eye cups. There were also a couple of
toothbrushes sealed in transparent paper cases.
Caroline looked and longed. At last she took one of the sealed brushes
in her hand and went to the door that was opposite the door into her own
room. Sallie had said something about this door's opening into some
one's else room, and she must always leave it unlocked, when she went
out of the bathroom.
Caroline knocked at the door. She hoped that Aunt Eunice would open to
her, but instead it was Cousin Penelope in a loose lacy gown, who
appeared on the threshold.
"I'm sorry," faltered Caroline.
"No matter," said Penelope, coolly but not unkindly. "I was only reading
a silly book. What is it?"
"Could I--could I have this toothbrush?" hesitated Caroline. She felt
guiltily that she must make some explanation, so she added: "I don't
want to use the one--the one I brought off the train."
"You're like me," said Penelope, as if she were pleased with the
resemblance. "I always want to throw away everything that I've used in
the dirty cars. Of course, take the toothbrush, Jacqueline. Take
anything you wish from the medicine closet. My own personal things I
keep on my dressing-table."
"Thank you very much," said Caroline.
She stood there, shy and solemn, in the little short-sleeved,
square-necked nightgown. She hardly knew whether to turn away or to
linger. Because Cousin Penelope did not turn away.
Cousin Penelope seemed trying to speak, and apparently she did not find
it easy.
"Jacqueline," she brought out the words suddenly, "how long have
you--taken lessons on the piano?"
"Always," said Caroline truthfully, "except last winter."
"Of course," the thought flashed through Penelope's mind, "they
neglected her music at that horrid school where Edith Delane sent
her--to get rid of her." But what she said aloud to Caroline was: "Who
taught you?"
No doubt Caroline ought to have said, "My mother," and betrayed the
whole deception that Jacqueline had led her into practicing. But it
takes courage to destroy a lovely world in which, however undeservedly,
one is very happy, especially when the destruction of that world would
leave one cowering, a guilty wretch, before such a judge as Cousin
Penelope, with her serene, high forehead.
"A--a lady taught me," Caroline told a half-truth.
"She must have been quite a good teacher."
Caroline nodded. The tears were near her eyelids.
"Folks called her a very good teacher," she whispered. "She's dead now."
"Loyal and affectionate," thought Penelope. "That's the Gildersleeve
blood in her." Aloud she went on, with a change of subject, to
Caroline's great relief: "There's a Polish lady spending the summer here
in Longmeadow. She's a really exceptional pianist. I believe if I asked
her----How would you like to have some lessons from her this summer?"
Caroline clasped her hands upon the toothbrush.
"Oh, I'd love it like anything--but I--I couldn't--it--it would
cost--lots."
Penelope lifted her brows slightly, but she smiled.
"That sounds like Great-uncle Thaddeus Gildersleeve, who was the most
cautious man in Longmeadow," she said. "Don't fret about the bills! This
will be my treat, Jacqueline, to my Cousin Jack's little daughter."
She did not offer to kiss Caroline, but she put her hand on her
shoulder, and smiled down at her quite kindly.
"Run along to bed now," she said. "We'll go together and call on Madame
Woleski to-morrow."
A little later, when Caroline was settled between the fresh, cool sheets
in the green and golden room, she told it all to Mildred.
"I'm to take lessons from a Polish lady," she whispered. "Oh, I think
Cousin Penelope likes me, or she wouldn't have offered. It's like Heaven
here, isn't it, Mildred? If only we could stay forever!"
And while she whispered the words, Caroline was aware that she meant to
stay just as long as ever she could. Any vague scruple of conscience
which might have driven her to confess to the deluded Gildersleeves, was
now quite done away with. Jacqueline, inventor of the deed, had told her
to keep still, and as long as the reward of silence was to live in this
wonderful house with a piano, and take lessons from an exceptional
Polish lady, she would keep still. She only hoped and prayed that
Jacqueline might not find it too terrible with the cows and half-aunt
Martha, and so be moved to come at once and claim her rightful place.