ONE WAY OUT
Shakespeare speaks in one of his plays of the disastrous position of the
man who is blown up with the bomb he has himself touched off. Jacqueline
was not nearly so well acquainted with Shakespeare as Caroline was. But
one half-second after she made her startling announcement, she needed no
poet to tell her how that poor man felt.
Aunt Martha stared for that one half-second, and then a look of actual
triumph came flooding into her tear-stained face.
"There, Judge!" she cried, with her arms tight about Jacqueline.
"Doesn't that prove what I kept telling you? It's the awful heat--and
she's worked so hard and faithful, poor young one--and that long walk
yesterday in the sun--it's gone to her head. You can see for yourself
she doesn't know what she does--or what she says."
Jacqueline stood speechless, ("flabbergasted," Grandma would have called
it!) while she looked from Aunt Martha's excited, anxious, yet beaming
face, to the Judge who sat coldly, shrewdly watching. Crowding into her
brain came memories she had laid aside, passages and chapters in the
latter portion of that fateful volume, "The Prince and the Pauper."
"Oh, pluffy catamounts!" she almost shrieked in terror. "Don't you go
acting like those silly boobs in that beastly old book--don't you go
thinking I'm off my head, because I'm not--I'm not! I'm Jacqueline--and
I never was anybody else! I'm Jacqueline Gildersleeve!"
She began to cry, tears of temper and terror combined. For this was
drama, more than enough to satisfy her. If they didn't believe her--why,
then they must think her either crazy or an awful liar and a thief! What
did they do with crazy people--and with thieves? The Judge had a court
and a jail--Neil had said so. And she had laughed, only a little while
ago, at the mere idea of her being sent to jail, as Neil had said, to
tease her. It was no laughing matter now.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" choked Jacqueline. "I want my Aunt Edie--she'll
know I'm me. And my Uncle Jimmie! Oh, oh!"
Aunt Martha was herself again. Nothing apparently could down her, except
the dreadful fear that one of her children could be a thief and a liar.
She drew Jacqueline down on her lap, and held her safe against her
breast, and Jacqueline, for all she was eleven next month and so big she
nearly overwhelmed Aunt Martha, clung tight to her and wept into the
hollow of her sunburnt neck.
"There, there, you poor child!" soothed Aunt Martha. "Cry all you want
to--cry it out!"
"I don't _want_ to!" sniffled Jacqueline, and lifted her smeary face.
"Lend me your hanky, Aunt Martha. Nellie's got mine."
She dried her eyes and felt a little better, but she didn't offer to
leave Aunt Martha's lap, and she was thankful that Aunt Martha still
kept hold of her, for the Judge was right there in the big rocker, and
his steely eyes, under his drawn brows never wavered from her face.
"Well! Well!" said the Judge. "So you're Jacqueline, are you, and not
Caroline Tait at all?"
"Now, Judge!" Aunt Martha begged. "Don't get her all upset again."
"But I'm _not_ sick," insisted Jacqueline, "and I won't get upset unless
you go calling me crazy like they did in the book."
"What book?" the Judge questioned.
"The silly old 'Prince and the Pauper,'" Jacqueline explained. "Judge
Blair gave it to me to read on the train, but I never want to see it
again as long as I live, because it was the book that did it."
The Judge leaned back in his chair, and fitted his finger tips together.
Over them he watched Jacqueline.
"Go ahead," he bade, "and tell us all about it."
"Well, Caroline got on the train at Chicago," Jacqueline told her story
in the intense silence, "and she was scared to death about going to the
farm, because of the boys and the cows, and no piano--and I didn't want
to go to Great-aunt Eunice's poky old house--and the two boys in the
book changed round--and Caroline and I were both going on eleven, and
had brown hair, and nobody in Longmeadow had ever seen either of us--and
I thought it would be fun----"
Her voice began to falter, as she sensed the gravity of both her
listeners. What she and Caroline had done, she realized now, was
dangerous and dreadful. She dropped her eyes, thoroughly ashamed, but
though she could not keep the quaver out of her voice, she spoke the
words that it was only fair to speak.
"It was mostly me," she confessed. "Caroline wouldn't have done it, not
even for the piano, but I said she was a quitter, and we changed clothes
and things, only she kept Mildred, and when she got off the train at
Baring Junction, the Gildersleeves just grabbed her--and I went in the
Lizzie with Aunt Martha."
"Well, I--never!" gasped Aunt Martha. She was amazed, she was a little
angry, perhaps. But she wasn't crying the way she cried when Jacqueline
said she had taken the beads. "Did you mean to keep it up all summer,
Jackie?"
"No, Aunt Martha," Jacqueline admitted. "The day I broke the cups, you
know, when I went up to the village I was going to change back, but
Caroline was having a party next day--they thought she was Jacqueline,
you know--and she cried. She'd never had a party nor nothing. So I told
her we'd let things go till Aunt Edie came in September, and I wouldn't
have given the show away now, only I couldn't stand it, Aunt Martha, to
have you think--what you thought about me."
Deplorably Aunt Martha hugged Jacqueline at this point, instead of
shaking her, as really Jacqueline deserved to be shaken.
"There now, Judge!" Aunt Martha cried exultantly. "It's all true, that
part about her running off to the village, the day the cups were
broken." The Judge shook his grizzled head, above his finger tips.
"That may be true, Martha, but you'll admit the rest of the story sounds
pretty queer."
"I don't care how queer and far-fetched it sounds," insisted Aunt
Martha. "I'd believe _any_ story before I'd believe this child isn't
honest. Why, Judge, whoever she is, she's been round here with me, going
on nine weeks now. I tell you, she _couldn't_ steal nor lie. 'Tisn't in
her."
The Judge looked down a moment at his finger tips.
"Remember what day it was she got here, Martha?" he asked unexpectedly.
"Yes, Judge. The twenty-third of June. Her mother's cousin wrote me the
day and train I was to expect her, and 'twas the same day I had a bill
to pay in Baring."
"Hm!" said the Judge. "Yes, that was the day that Mrs. Gildersleeve's
little grandniece arrived from California. I remember because Mrs.
Gildersleeve declined an invitation to dine with us that night--on my
birthday. She'd counted a lot on seeing that child. The two girls came
on the same train from Chicago, that much is sure. And you'd never seen
this little niece of yours?"
"Judge, I wouldn't have known her from a hole in the ground."
"Did you ever notice anything in her behavior different from what you
would naturally have expected in your brother's child? I know you want
to believe her story, Martha, but I trust you to be careful and exact."
"Yes, there _were_ some queer things, now I come to think of it," Aunt
Martha spoke eagerly, with her arms still round Jacqueline. "Why, Judge,
this child didn't know the look of her own trunk, nor where to find her
trunk-key. I thought 'twas just because she was upset with the journey,
but I see now how it came about. She had a pocketful of real expensive
candy--she said it was given her by a little girl on the train."
"I said a little girl on the train had a boxful," murmured Jacqueline.
"And the little girl was me!"
"And she hadn't one single idea about the value of money," Aunt Martha
went on joyfully. "I thought 'twas just because they'd brought her up
foolishly, but of course the Gildersleeves don't have to count their
pennies. Then she didn't know how to do one blessed thing about the
house, but she took hold nicely, and she's been a real help to me all
summer. Why, Judge," Aunt Martha cried in sudden dismay, "if she's
Jacqueline Gildersleeve, she'll be leaving us, and I don't know how I'll
ever get along without her."
Jacqueline hadn't thought of that, when she planned her merry trick,
there on the train. She was going to hurt Aunt Martha--Aunt Martha, who
believed in her and stood up for her to the Judge. She began to sniffle,
not for temper this time, and buried her face in Aunt Martha's coarse,
clean handkerchief.
"I didn't think--'twould be like this," she sobbed.
"Well, well!" crooned the Judge. "It doesn't sound very probable, but I
must admit it's not impossible--no, not altogether impossible."
Jacqueline lifted her face from the pocket handkerchief.
"Caroline will tell you it's so, when she gets back from the beach," she
hiccoughed, "and Aunt Edie and Uncle Jimmie, when they come in
September."
"Yes, of course," cried Aunt Martha eagerly.
"Hm!" boomed the Judge like a bee, but not a benevolent one. "But what
shall we do until they come? This little girl is in a pretty awkward
fix, because of these beads, if she can't prove to us that she's
Jacqueline Gildersleeve."
"Send for the other child," bristled Aunt Martha, "the _real_ Caroline.
Guess I've got some say in the matter, if she's my honest-to-goodness
niece."
The Judge shook his head.
"_This_ one is your niece," he said, with finality, "until there's proof
to the contrary, and I won't send for the other child and have Eunice
Gildersleeve upset for what may be a cock-and-bull story. Let's see!" he
mused. "Uncle Jimmie and Aunt Edie are our next hope. Where can we reach
these relatives of yours?" He turned to Jacqueline.
"I don't know where they are now," Jacqueline confessed mournfully. "All
their letters have gone to Caroline, of course, and they're moving about
all the time, and changing their address."
"Well," said the Judge, "you must think up somebody else who can
identify you, and some way of making the identification by telegraph. A
mere description isn't enough. There must be some distinguishing
feature. You haven't a strawberry mark on your left arm, have you?"
Jacqueline laughed hysterically, and at sight of what her parted lips
disclosed, Aunt Martha gave a cry of triumph.
"Those braces, Judge," she cried. "The braces on her teeth! There just
couldn't be two children with the identical same dental work. In fact, I
don't believe my real niece has any such."
The Judge looked at Aunt Martha with genuine approval.
"You always did have a good head on your shoulders, Martha," he said.
"Dental work, eh? Come to think of it, I know myself that the little
girl at The Chimnies has had no dentistry done in several years. I rode
into Boston one day with Penelope, when she was taking the child to the
dentist, and she commented quite sharply on the way in which her teeth
had been neglected. So now if this little girl will give us the address
of her dentist----"
"It's Dr. Graydon on the tenth floor of the Wouverman Building in Los
Angeles," Jacqueline answered readily. "Most all the girls I know go to
him."
The Judge wrote down the address methodically, in a little black
note-book.
"I'll wire him at once," he said, more to Aunt Martha than to
Jacqueline. "I shall have to retain these beads, as a matter of form,
until the child's story is proved or disproved. Meantime it will help to
settle this affair if she returns the five dollars she got from the
little Trowbridge girl."
Oh, dear! Here were more storm clouds gathering, just as the sky seemed
about to clear!
"I can't return the money," Jacqueline faltered. "I--I spent it."
The Judge looked grave again, but his voice was patient, and Aunt Martha
was encouraging, so Jacqueline managed to give a full account of the act
that she now was so ashamed of--the taking of Caroline's precious old
beads, and the pledging them with Miss Crevey.
When Jacqueline had finished Aunt Martha started eagerly to confirm her
story about bringing home a green-dragon cup, several weeks before, but
the Judge cut her short.
"Get the lacquer box and show us the beads," he bade.
Jacqueline slipped from Aunt Martha's lap to obey, and as she left the
room heard the Judge asking where the telephone was.
When Jacqueline came down with the box that held the beads, she found
the Judge at the wall phone in the kitchen, and Aunt Martha by the table
trying hard not to listen, but with her ears pricked up.
"Miss Crevey," her lips shaped the words for Jacqueline's comfort. She
seemed to guess that Jacqueline might uneasily be thinking of the town
constable.
The Judge turned from the telephone at last, with a flicker of a smile.
"Well," he nodded to Aunt Martha, "Lucretia Crevey was a most unwilling
witness, but she did at last confirm as much of the child's story as
pertains to her. And so these are the beads that made the trouble, eh?"
He looked at the yellow coil that Jacqueline showed him in the lacquer
box which she uncovered. "It might have been very serious trouble for
you, little what's-your-name," he went on gravely. "You realize that,
don't you?"
Jacqueline nodded, and drew a little nearer to Aunt Martha, who put her
arm quickly round her.
"Other articles, besides the string of beads you call your own, are
missing from The Chimnies," the Judge went on, "and you, having taken
the beads and disposed of them to the child next door, were naturally
suspected of taking them all."
Jacqueline pressed closer to Aunt Martha's side. She hadn't breath
enough now even to say "Oh!"
"It was by the merest chance," the Judge rubbed it in, "that it wasn't
the town constable who came here after you, instead of me, but luckily
some ladies, who know Mrs. Conway here and wanted to spare her as much
trouble as possible, heard about the beads, and put the case up to me.
That's why I came to call this morning."
"I can't ever thank you enough, Judge," Aunt Martha said, with a
wavering sort of smile.
They followed the Judge out into the sunshine of the side-yard, where
the children still were grouped under the shade of the trees where
Jacqueline had left them such ages ago, as it seemed to her, when she
thought of all that had happened since that moment.
"You understand, Martha," the Judge said, as he settled himself in his
roadster, "the little girl is still technically under suspicion. I'll
suspend judgment about this hocus-pocus, switched identity business,
till I hear from that Los Angeles dentist. Meantime she's remanded to
your custody, and I'll trust you to produce her at my office, if she
should be needed."
My, but that sounded as formal and dreadful as the clatter of prison
bolts! Jacqueline shivered, in spite of the heat, and she was glad when
she saw the Judge's car disappear in the white, powdery dust of the
highway.
Then Jacqueline turned to Aunt Martha.
"Oh," she said and once more with weariness and excitement and remorse,
she was half-crying. "I sure have got in awful wrong. I never thought,
when I started things, there on the train! And now I've made you heaps
and heaps of trouble, Aunt Martha--and you believed me--and stood up for
me like all kinds of a brick--and you're not my Aunt Martha, either, and
oh! I'm sorry that you aren't."
Aunt Martha put her arm round Jacqueline's shoulders.
"You're a naughty child, Jackie," she said tremulously, "to go and play
such tricks on all of us--a very naughty child. Your folks will probably
punish you." She hugged Jacqueline close. "But _I_ don't have to,
because you're not _my_ niece--but oh, dear me! don't I just wish you
were!"