PENELOPE TAKES ALARM
Like the hero of the old music hall song, Jacqueline felt that "now was
the time for disappearing." I wish I could say to her credit that she
fled, simply because she was afraid that if she came face to face with
Cousin Penelope, she would be tempted beyond her strength and withdraw
the promise she had so impulsively made to Caroline. As a matter of
fact, I suspect that she ran away, because she had had enough drama with
Aunt Martha and Caroline to satisfy even her drama-loving soul for at
least one day. At any rate, she dove out of the garden through the
narrow gap in the hedge, like a scared and nimble rabbit, and Caroline
was left to face alone the onslaught of Cousin Penelope.
Of course Caroline ought to have been just as noble as Jacqueline. She
ought to have called Jacqueline back, and presented her to Cousin
Penelope as her really, truly little kinswoman, and then for her own
part subsided gracefully into the company of the cows and the awful
boy-cousins, just as Tom Canty was willing to go back to rags and dirt
and misery.
But Caroline thought of the party, and the darling little doll-favors.
Sweet little Watteau gowns they wore, of figured silk, with their
powdered hair piled high and topped with wee, beribboned hats of straw
that would have turned a fairy green with envy. Caroline thought, too,
of the look that would come into Cousin Penelope's pale, stern face,
when she knew that it was upon a little cheat that she had wasted
kindness, and music lessons, and dentistry! No, Caroline hadn't the
courage to tell the truth. She just stood there, dumb and trembling,
while Cousin Penelope bore down upon her.
"Jacqueline!" Cousin Penelope's voice, as she spoke to Caroline, was
sharp with what an older person would have recognized as anxiety. "Who
was that child you were talking with?"
Mercy, what a chance to tell the truth--the whole dramatic truth--in a
dramatic manner! But Caroline, like Jacqueline on several occasions,
told half a truth which, like many a half-truth, was as deceptive as a
good, big whopper.
"A--a little girl," she stammered. "She lives down in the Meadows."
Through the dusk she could almost feel Cousin Penelope bristle, like a
lady-dog when rough strangers come too near her precious young.
"That bold, forward Conway child? Of all the audacity! What brought her
prowling into our garden?"
"She--she wanted to--see me," faltered Caroline.
"To see you!" echoed Cousin Penelope. "Why should she _dream_ of
associating with you, Jacqueline?"
Bewildered and badgered, Caroline knew that she must say _something_.
"We--we were on the train--coming from Chicago," she said in a voice
that see-sawed, though she tried hard to keep it steady. "We played
together--with Mildred. Oh, she's a nice little girl, Cousin Penelope,
honest, she is--you'd like her--she's nicer than me--ever so much so!"
She had thought she hadn't a tear left in her, but now she began to cry
again, not noisily, but in soft little tired gasps. Oh, how was it that
clinging heroines in books always managed to swoon? She wished that
_she_ could swoon, then and there, and so escape from everything. She
couldn't bear to have Cousin Penelope ask her even one more question.
But Cousin Penelope stopped questioning. Amazingly she put her arm round
Caroline's tense little shoulders, and dabbed her eyes gently with her
filmy handkerchief, which smelt like a breeze over beds of violets.
"There, there!" she said. "You mustn't make your eyes red, on the night
before your party. You must have forgotten the party."
Forgotten the party! If only Cousin Penelope guessed!
They went back together through the dusky, fragrant garden. Cousin
Penelope urged Caroline to look at the little pale stars, which were
coming out now almost as fast as you could count them in the sky, that
was the color of tarnished old silver.
"It will be a fine day to-morrow," Penelope told Caroline. "You don't
realize, you little Californian, how we have to study the sky, here in
New England, when we plan to give a garden-party."
Then she talked about the dress that Caroline should wear at the party,
and the way in which the flowers should be arranged on the table. She
was talking to take Caroline's mind off the scene with the rude little
girl from the Conway farm. Caroline saw through her strategy, but she
was grateful to her, just the same. She only hoped that Aunt Eunice
wouldn't see her red eyes, and have to be told about what had happened
in the garden.
Better than Caroline had dared to hope, they found Aunt Eunice seated on
the wide, cool porch, where it was now too dark for features to be
distinguished.
"This little girl is running up to bed," said Cousin Penelope blithely.
"We must get our beauty sleep before the party."
Thankful for this way of escape, Caroline kissed Aunt Eunice good-night
and trotted upstairs, to bathe her face and her smarting eyes. How good
it was that Aunt Eunice didn't suspect!
At that moment Aunt Eunice, on the dim, cool porch, was saying in a
troubled voice:
"What's wrong, Penelope? The little thing had been crying. Her cheeks
were quite wet. She isn't--homesick?"
"Not in the least!" replied Penelope, in a crisp voice that defied the
whole tribe of Delanes and the entire state of California. "Why should
she be homesick, here with _us_?"
"What was she crying about?"
"Such an annoying little incident, Mother. A child that is staying at
the Conways' scraped acquaintance with Jacqueline on the train and has
been trying to force herself upon her ever since. I found her just now
with Jacqueline in the garden. She ran away, you may be sure, as soon as
I appeared."
"A child from the Meadows?" exclaimed Aunt Eunice. "Why, she is ever so
far from home, and it's dark."
Penelope didn't seem to think that fact of any importance.
"Poor little Jacqueline is too young to know how to handle such an
awkward situation," she went on. "She's Gildersleeve through and
through, Mother. Loyal and affectionate. You should have heard her stand
up for the horrid little pushing creature, because she thought her a
friend. I must find some way myself to put a stop to such intrusions. I
wonder if I'd better speak to the Conway woman? She seems very
sensible."
"Martha Conway is the salt of the earth," said Aunt Eunice, with
conviction. "You ought to know, Penelope. You went to public school with
her once upon a time. After all, why shouldn't this child come play with
Jacqueline?"
Penelope spoke loftily, as she occasionally did speak to her mother.
"Now, Mother dearest, just for the sake of your democratic theories we
can't let Jack's daughter associate with every common child that pushes
itself forward. Blood will tell, you know."
"Yes," said Aunt Eunice, with mild persistence, "but what's wrong with
the Conway blood, Penelope? Conways and Gildersleeves and Holdens and
Taits and Trowbridges, they all came here together in the old
days--God-fearing farmer-folk, the lot of them, and not much to choose
among them, though some have prospered lately more than others."
Penelope became indulgent. There wasn't much else for her to do, if she
was to retire gracefully from the argument.
"You're a darling old radical, Mother," she said. "It's fortunate that
_I_ am here to protect Jacqueline."
Aunt Eunice sighed. She frequently did sigh at the end of one of her
conversations with Penelope that never seemed to get them anywhere. She
rose to her feet and gathered up her thin scarf of silk.
"I think I'll go up to my room," she said. "I've a telephone call to
send."
So Penelope was left alone, victorious, if you please to call it so. She
wasn't quite sure. Indeed, to herself she said:
"Mother is provoking. If she really is going to take that view of the
case, I must act with decision. For, mother or no mother, I'm going to
head off any acquaintance between Jacqueline and that rough child from
the Meadows, even if I have to alter all our summer plans to do it."