NIGHT OF JUDGMENT
They were all seated in the softly lighted parlor at The
Chimnies--Cousin Penelope, stonily silent, Aunt Eunice, wiping her
spectacles over and over, Aunt Edie, little and gray-eyed, with
helpless, fluttery gestures--when Jacqueline, like a criminal in
custody, walked in at Uncle Jimmie's side.
An entrance all right, and drama, but not the kind Jacqueline wanted!
"Oh, Jackie!" cried Aunt Edie, as soon as she set eyes on her. "You
dreadful child! What _have_ you done now? What _will_ you do next? Come
here and kiss me! I hope you didn't catch anything in that queer place.
I'm so afraid of typhus in these gone-to-seed old townships."
Aunt Edie was insulting New England, just as Cousin Penelope had
expected her to do, but Cousin Penelope hadn't the spirit left to do
more than fling her a disdainful glance.
"Go say how-do-you-do to your Aunt Eunice," Aunt Edie bade Jacqueline,
"and tell her you're sorry. You owe her all sorts of apologies. I
shouldn't think she'd ask you inside her house, after the way you've
behaved."
Jacqueline shrugged her shoulders. One had to put on indifference, if
one didn't want to bawl. She went to Great-aunt Eunice, made her little
curtsy, and offered a limp hand.
"Well, well, Jacqueline," said Aunt Eunice, being nice with an effort
that did not escape Jacqueline, "we're very glad to see you here at
last. Now we'd better have dinner."
"Jackie, you don't _deserve_ any dinner," Aunt Edie spoke emphatically,
and this time Cousin Penelope shot her a glance of heartiest approval.
"I don't _want_ any dinner, thanks," said Jacqueline with her chin up.
"I had my supper at Aunt Martha's, and it's a very clean, nice place,
and no typhus at all, and I hope you didn't bring any germs and things
back with _you_ from your nasty old Alaska."
"Now don't get fresh," warned Uncle Jimmie.
Everybody hated her--everybody in the world--it was worse than
Institutions--and Aunt Martha was way off in the Meadows! Jacqueline
felt the belittling hot tears well into her eyes.
"Then don't you say things about the farm," she flared, "nor about Aunt
Martha--she's a lovely aunt--and I never had a grandmother before--and
oh, dear! Freddie cried when I left, and maybe he's crying for me now."
She felt her eyes brim over with tears, which she brushed angrily away.
Aunt Edie made a little helpless movement, as if she might rise and go
to her, but she met Uncle Jimmie's eye and sat still. Aunt Eunice,
however, wasn't any relation to Uncle Jimmie by marriage or otherwise,
and she didn't care _how_ he looked at her. She just put her arm round
Jacqueline and drew her close.
"Come, come, dear," she comforted. "Nobody meant to speak against Martha
Conway. She's the salt of the earth, and I don't doubt but the summer
with her has done you a lot of good."
"I'll say it has," Jacqueline sniffled while she felt forlornly for a
handkerchief. "I can make gingerbread--and apple-sauce--and cook eggs
five different ways. It was a corking farm--and I'm going down there
to-morrow. I told the boys I would. I didn't say half the things I want
to say to Carol. I'm going down there early and stay all day----"
"But there won't be any time to-morrow," Aunt Edie struck in. "Didn't
Uncle Jimmie tell you?"
"We've not indulged in much conversation," Uncle Jimmie spoke dryly.
"We've got to be in New York to-morrow afternoon," explained Aunt Edie.
"We'll have to start at crack of dawn, but don't bother about breakfast
for us, Mrs. Gildersleeve. We can get something at the hotel in the next
big town. We have to rush--we've booked passage on the _Crespic_ that
sails on Saturday--and there's rafts of things to do in New York. Jim
has to see people. He's going over for the Government, you know."
She gazed at her Jim proudly. Jacqueline stood with Aunt Eunice's arm
about her (Aunt Eunice who, she knew, would rather she were Caroline!)
and felt chilly and out of things.
"Am I going, too, Aunt Edie?" she questioned falteringly.
"Oh, yes, doodle-bug," Aunt Edie unbent at last, in spite of Uncle
Jimmie. "We can't leave you behind--no knowing what you'd get into next.
We'll be trotting all over the Continent but we'll find a school for you
in Switzerland----"
"A strict one," said Uncle Jimmie.
My, how grouchy he was! But he hadn't had a chance yet to wash off the
dust of two hundred miles swift motoring and nobody seemed to think at
all about his comfort.
"But I don't _want_ to go away to-morrow," said Jacqueline painfully.
"I've got to see Carol again--I _must_ see Carol."
"I'm afraid Carol will have to wait," Aunt Edie dismissed the subject
lightly. "Can we have ten minutes grace before dinner, Mrs.
Gildersleeve? Jim wants to brush himself, I know."
That was all Caroline and her affairs meant to them, those grown folk
who were settling things for Jacqueline. Aunt Edie rushed Uncle Jimmie
off to the guest room. Cousin Penelope said something in a cold voice
about having dinner served, if it weren't entirely spoiled by now.
Secretly Jacqueline hoped it was spoiled, since Cousin Penelope would
have to eat it.
Aunt Eunice was the only one who understood or cared. She said:
"I'll show you to your room now, Jacqueline."
"I can find it myself," said Jacqueline stiffly. "I was here in your
house before. Didn't that Judge tell you about the beads--my _own_
beads? But I'd like to have you show me, just the same, if it isn't too
much trouble," she conceded, more graciously.
Side by side they went up the stairway just as Aunt Eunice and Caroline
had gone, weeks before. The door was opened into the bedroom that
Jacqueline remembered. Aunt Eunice fumbled with the electric button, and
the light flooded the pale paper with its leafy frieze, the French gray
furniture, the oyster white rug--and in the middle of the rug was the
rocking chair on its face, with a pillow laid upon its rockers, and a
note pinned to the pillow. Jacqueline sprang and seized the note.
"It's for you, Aunt Eunice," she cried, "and I bet anything it's from
Carol. Of course she wouldn't go away without a word. Oh, read it, do!"
Aunt Eunice read the little letter that was splashed with Caroline's
tears.
"Oh, dear!" quavered Aunt Eunice, beneath her breath. "The poor little
lamb! Oh, dear!"
For one second Aunt Eunice and Jacqueline looked at each other with eyes
of complete understanding. Then Jacqueline threw her arms about Aunt
Eunice, and burst out crying, as she had not once cried for her own
distress.
"Oh, oh!" she wailed. "She'll hate it at the farm--I know she will. The
piano is funny and old and out of tune--and if you don't sit on those
boys, they get fresh. And Carol won't sit on 'em. She's a 'fraid cat.
She wouldn't have changed round with me in the first place, if I hadn't
made her."
"Don't, don't, my dear!" Aunt Eunice tried to soothe in a broken voice.
"But she never had a party," Jacqueline wept on, "not till you gave her
one. That's why we didn't change back again before. We were going to--I
was so sick of it at the farm--but she had to have her party--she just
cried because she wanted it so--she said it was heaven here--and the
nasty old music lessons--she _liked_ 'em, can you beat it? I wanted to
go see her to-morrow--she wouldn't keep these clothes--but I want her to
have some of mine--and a winter coat--I'll make her take 'em--hers are
funny and old and mended--and I've worn 'em out dreadfully--and she
loves pretty clothes--and she won't have any more now ever--nor dentists
nor music--and she was eating out of a shoe box on the train--and it
wasn't her fault at all--I put her up to it, there on the train--and
now--she's the one that has--to have--a horrid time--and c-cows!"
It was really dreadful, the way Jacqueline was crying now that she had
let herself go. Cousin Penelope, coming up the stairs, heard the sobs
and screams and hurried into the room.
"Mother!" she spoke frowningly. "Really, you mustn't make yourself
ill--over this child."
Oh, the worlds of contempt in Cousin Penelope's tone, for all that "this
child" was Jack Gildersleeve's truly daughter!
Aunt Edie came, too, from the guest room down the hall, more fluttery
than ever, and Uncle Jimmie, who wasn't fluttery at all. It was he who
took the situation sternly in hand.
"Cut it out now, Jack," he bade. "Don't be a rotten sport."
Obediently Jacqueline took her arms from about Aunt Eunice. She was
frightened into complete silence, when she saw how pale and faint Aunt
Eunice looked. Of course she would be a sport. Somehow she must make
Uncle Jimmie stop frowning at her.
"I didn't mean----" she sniffled. "I'm--awful sorry, Aunt Eunice. Go on
and get your old dinner, everybody. I'm not hungry, nor anything, and
I'm going right straight off to bed."
Aunt Eunice didn't even kiss Jacqueline. She went away with Cousin
Penelope, as if she had had all she could stand for one evening, and she
took Caroline's letter, clasped tight in her hand. Uncle Jimmie, at a
sign from Aunt Edie, followed them, but as he went he cast at
Jacqueline, struggling with her tears, a look that was a shade less
disgusted.
Aunt Edie lingered.
"Now don't you cry any more," she said kindly enough, and hugged
Jacqueline. "It's all over, and you're sorry, and everybody knows it,
and forgives you, so everything is all right again. We shall have a
ripping trip, and of course your Uncle Jimmie was joking about the
school. You won't be there all the time anyway--we'll take you to places
with us--and you shall buy heaps of pretty things. Now smile to me, old
doodle-bug!"
Jacqueline smiled--at least she supposed she did. She stretched her
lips, and Aunt Edie appeared satisfied, for she kissed her, and urged
her to come have a bite of dinner, just to please Aunt Eunice.
"But if you're going to cry again, never mind, lamb-baba!" she added
hastily. "Get your bath and jump into bed, and I'll come later to tuck
you up."
Then Aunt Edie was gone, and Jacqueline went to the bureau, to get
herself a nightdress. She opened the drawers, full of snow-white,
hand-made little undergarments, and many-colored socks, fine
handkerchiefs and hair-ribbons, little bags and gloves and endless
pretties. She shut the drawers noisily, and went to the closet for a
kimono. All about her she found hanging little frocks, just as she
remembered them, of net and organdie, crêpe and wool, slip-overs and
coats, her precious unused riding suit.
For a second she glowed with the joy of having her own possessions once
more. She cast a satisfied glance round the pretty room, with its
pictures, and knick-knacks of china, its cozy bed, its shaded lights.
But this was the room in which Carol had lived, all these weeks, and now
Carol was lying in the north chamber at the farm, where the pictures
were old and ugly, and the wall-paper covered with crazy rose baskets,
upside down. Carol, who so loved pretty things and gentle ways!
All over, and everything all right again? That was what Aunt Edie
thought, did she? Much she knew about it!
Jacqueline's gaze traveled to the bookshelves in the corner, where the
light from the desk lamp fell strong. She saw lying on the wide top
shelf a fat volume in a gay jacket that was familiar. She launched
herself upon it.
"Oh, dumb-paste you!" she cried. "I wish I'd never seen you, you beastly
mean old 'Prince and Pauper'!"
She dashed the book on the floor. She kicked it--yes, she actually
kicked it. Then she ran and threw herself recklessly down on the
beautifully made bed, and if Carol, in the lonely north chamber, cried
to herself that night, Jacqueline, in the green and gold room at The
Chimnies, was crying just as hard, and perhaps a little harder.