"that would never do in all the world. Leave the room, Hooper." This last
was said so exactly like his mistress at her best, that the butler obeyed
it, making a wide circuit as he passed Rachel, who still stood, the picture
of wrath, over the broken china and glass.
Not a word was said for some minutes. Outside, Polly, the old parrot, was
scolding vociferously, and the tall clock was ticking away for clear life.
Hooper, his ear first, and then his eye, glued to the keyhole, was vainly
endeavoring to find out what was passing in the sitting-room.
At last Rachel drew a long breath. "I'm sorry I broke your things," and she
awkwardly pushed the bits with her shoe.
"Oh, that's no matter," said Miss Parrott, feeling astonished at herself
for the words, "but you said such dreadful things. I can never forget
that." She drew a long breath.
No matter that she broke those beautiful things! The whole truth flashed
upon Rachel, and although the smell of the hated stuff was even yet
dragging back to her all the memory of her low condition of life through
such childhood as she had known, over and above it all was quickly rising
the conviction that for this unpardonable misdemeanor she would be sent
back to the city and--awful thought!--perhaps to Gran. She set her teeth
together hard, and clenched her thin hands as they hung by her side.
"Yes. I say it is no matter," repeated Miss Parrott, not suffering herself
to glance at the wreck of her ancestral treasures, "but oh, child! why did
you say such dreadful things?" She still clung to the cabinet, shocked out
of one tradition of her family, as if she must still hold to its time-worn
and honored furnishings.
Rachel gave her a swift, bird-like glance. "You do care; you're crying,"
she exclaimed, aghast at the tears running over the wrinkled face.
"Not about that, but the things you said; I didn't mean to do you harm."
Miss Parrott did not attempt to deny the tears, and brushed them off with a
trembling hand.
"You ain't hurt me," cried Rachel, stumbling across the floor, with an
awful feeling at her heart to see this stiff old woman cry.
"Oh, whatever your name is, don't! I'll go home, and the minister may send
me back to Gran, an' she may beat me. Don't cry!" She seized the heavy
black silk in its front breadth and held on tightly.
The butler, having at this minute his eye at the keyhole, now rushed in,
unable to bear the sight, to be met by Miss Parrott, her withered face
flaming behind her tears.
"Do you go directly out, Hooper, and remain away until you are called." He
never knew how he got out; and this time the keyhole was unobstructed.
"Were you beaten, you poor little thing?" Was this Miss Parrott bending
over Rachel's shaking shoulders, and hands clutching the silk gown! "Oh,
dear, dear!"
"Tain't no matter," mumbled Rachel. "I don't care, only don't let me go
back." She shook in terror, and crouched down to the floor.
"Never!" said Miss Parrott firmly. All the blood in her body seemed to be
in her wrinkled face, and her eyes shone, as had those of her father, the
old judge, when befriending some poor unfortunate. "You shall never go
back, child; don't be afraid."
But Rachel still shivered. There were the broken bits of china and glass on
the floor back of her, and the minister and his wife must be told of the
awful accident; and what they would do with her, why, of course, no one
could tell.
The thin, wrinkled fingers on which blazed many rings, that had been her
mother's before her, were tremblingly smoothing Rachel's neatly braided
hair. And as if she thought what was passing beneath them, Miss Parrott
broke out quickly:
"I shall never speak of it--of the breaking of those articles, child; so no
one will know it but ourselves."
"Never tell?" gasped Rachel, lifting her head, in astonishment and scarcely
believing her ears.
"Of course not," declared Miss Parrott, in scorn. "So do not be afraid any
longer, but get up and dry your eyes." For at this announcement, Rachel's
tears had gushed out, and she sobbed as if her heart would break.
For answer Rachel flew to her feet, and without any warning and astonishing
herself equally with the recipient, she threw her arms around Miss
Parrott's thin neck, in among all the ancient laces with which she
delighted to adorn it, and hugged it convulsively.
Taken unawares, Miss Parrott could utter no word, and Rachel clung to her
and sobbed. But the old ears had heard what hadn't been sounded in them for
many a long day, and forgotten were wasted heirlooms and broken treasures.
"I love you!" Rachel had said, hugging her tumultuously.
XXIII
THE OLD PARROTT HOMESTEAD
"Come, child." Miss Parrott drew herself out of Rachel's clinging arms.
What should she do now to divert this little girl from her terror and
distress? She was sorely put to it for the answer. She gathered up the
nervous hands in one of her own, and led the way out into the wide hall,
hung with ancestral portraits. "I am going to take you to my own room," she
said suddenly.
Rachel didn't know the wonderful condescension of this plan for her
amusement, but she clung to the long, thin fingers, and presently she was
seated on a cricket covered with tambour work, and watching Miss Parrott's
movements about the spacious apartment.
"Move your cricket over here, child." Miss Parrott was unlocking what
looked to Rachel's eyes like a big cupboard that stood out from the wall.
It had little panes of glass all criss-crossed with strips of white wood
across its face, and a set of drawers beneath. And as Rachel obediently
carried the cricket over and set it down where Miss Parrott indicated, her
chief attention was still upon this curious cupboard, and what Miss Parrott
was doing in it, for the door now stood open.
Rachel leaned forward on her cricket and rested her hands on her knees. On
the shelves was such an array of articles, that to the child's gaze,
nothing stood out distinctly as an object to lavish one's sole attention
upon. But Miss Parrott made early choice, and lifting out a big doll from
one of the lower shelves, she laid it in Rachel's lap.
"I used to play with it," she said softly.
Rachel looked down upon the doll in her lap. It was long and hard and
angular as to body, and its face was a dull white, except some patches of
pink on the outer edge of the cheeks, showing the rest of the coloring to
have been worn away. Its eyes were staring up into Rachel's in such an
expressionless, unpleasant manner that she involuntarily turned away her
own.
"Her name is Priscilla," said Miss Parrott, looking down at Rachel, which
called her to herself and the necessity of attention to these efforts to
amuse her.
"Yes'm," said Rachel.
"Now I don't suppose you know how much I loved this doll," said Miss
Parrott, turning her back on the cupboard, to draw up a chair opposite
Rachel and seat herself upon it, "but I used to take her to bed with me
nights."
"Did you?" said Rachel, beginning to finger the doll with sudden interest.
"Yes, and I made her clothes and talked to her, and sometimes I called her
'Sister,'" said Miss Parrott, quite gone in remembrance.
"Oh!" said Rachel.
"You see, she was all I had. I was the youngest, and my real sister was
married and away, and my brothers were men when I was a little girl."
"Oh!" said Rachel again.
"And so I had to make believe that Priscilla was alive," said Miss Parrott,
her eyes glowing with remembrance of her childhood, brought so singularly
near on this morning; "I really had to Rachel."
"I've got a child," said Rachel, growing suddenly communicative, and
looking up from the old doll to watch the effect of her announcement.
"Have you, dear?" responded Miss Parrott, quite pleased at the bright face,
from which the last tear had been wiped away.
"Yes, my Phronsie gave her to me, and she sleeps with me," said Rachel, in
great satisfaction.
"I suppose she is very much like Priscilla," observed Miss Parrott.
"Oh, no, she isn't," declared Rachel promptly, turning her mind again to
the ancient doll; "my child is pretty and she shuts her eyes. She isn't a
bit like yours."
"Well, Priscilla was always pretty to me," said Miss Parrott, astonished
that she felt so little the slight to her child. "Well, now, Rachel, we
will put the doll aside. You may lay it on the bed and then come back
here."
Rachel got off from her cricket and went over to the other side of the
apartment.
"My, what a funny bed!" she exclaimed, using her eyes to their utmost to
see as much of the canopy, with its tester of blue and white chintz, the
four posts beneath, and the counterpane executed in honeycomb pattern.
Miss Parrott, exploring her cupboard to get out something else with which
to entertain Rachel, did not hear her; so she slowly returned, walking
backward to observe as much of this queer article of furniture as the time
allowed. In this way she fell over the cricket.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Parrott, pulling her head out of the cupboard,
"did you hurt yourself, child?"
"No'm," said Rachel, getting up with a very red face, and exceedingly
ashamed. "I don't believe I broke it." She set the cricket up in its proper
position and anxiously examined it all over.
"Oh, no," said Miss Parrott reassuringly, "the cricket is not harmed. See
here, Rachel"--she held in her hand a long string of little irregular
things that dangled as she turned toward her--"I am going to put these on
your neck. Now stand still, child." And suiting the action to the words,
something snapped with a little click under Rachel's chin.
Rachel looked down quickly at the queer little odd-shaped red things,
hanging over her breast.
"I used to wear them when I was a little girl, very much smaller than you,"
said Miss Parrott, her head on one side and falling back to see the effect.
"What are they?" asked Rachel, not daring to lay a finger on them, and
holding her breath at the idea of being within the magnificent circle of
Miss Parrott's early adornments.
"Red coral beads," said Miss Parrott, smiling at the nice contrast between
the necklace and the dark little face above. "Now, child, you are going to
wear them whenever you come to visit me and as long as you stay. And that
means they will not come off till to-morrow, for you are to sleep here
to-night."
"I haven't any nightgown," said Rachel, who by this time liked to stay well
enough, but seeing here an insuperable objection.
"That's easily managed," said Miss Parrott, quickly; "I shall send a note
to the parsonage, saying you will stay, and----"
At the mention of "note" Rachel suddenly collapsed, and a look of terror
spread over her face.
"Oh, I forgot," she cried.
"Why, what is the matter, child?" demanded Miss Parrott, in great concern.
"I must go and get it," said Rachel wildly, and, dashing blindly off, she
left Miss Parrott standing in front of her ancestral cupboard holding her
childish treasures, to rush over the long and winding back stairs. At their
end she found herself hopelessly entangled in an array of back passages and
little old-fashioned apartments, from which, run as she would, she could
never seem to find the right exit.
Her progress was noted with indignation and contempt by as many of the old
retainers in the Parrott service as could be gathered at short notice, and
their calls to her to leave the premises, accompanied by sundry shakings of
a long crash towel in the hands of the cook, only impeded Rachel's hope of
success.
"I don't know the way out," she cried at last, finding herself in a big
closet whose door, being open, she fondly trusted would allow her passage
out into the free air.
"Well, 'tisn't here," said an angry voice, and the brandishing of a big,
iron spoon made Rachel beat a hasty retreat, this time into the back hall.
Miss Parrott was just descending the stairs, her stiff, black silk skirt
held high, before she set foot in the servants' quarters.
"Child, child," she said in reproach, "what _is_ the matter?"
"Oh, I've lost the note--I mean, I forgot it." Rachel flew to her and
wailed it all out.
"She's crying, that bad girl is, all over Mistress's front breadth,"
announced Joanna, the parlor maid, through the little window of the
butler's pantry.
"La me!" ejaculated the cook, raising her hands and the crash towel, "to
think of our mistress so demeaning herself!"
"What note?" cried Miss Parrott, in great bewilderment. "Rachel, stop
crying at once and speak plainly. What note do you mean?"
"The one Mrs. Henderson gave me," cried Rachel; "I must go and get it, but
I don't know the way out."
"To give to me? Did Mrs. Henderson tell you to give it to me?" asked Miss
Parrott, beginning to see light.
"Yes'm. Oh, please let me out," begged Rachel; "I left it in the carriage."
"Ah--well, then, we'll go out this way." And there, turning to the left,
was the passage down which Rachel had plunged twice before, and at its end,
a small green door, that, when opened, led out through an arbor overrun
with creepers, to a short cut to the stables.
"Now, then!" Miss Parrott gathered up the train of her black silk gown and
put it over her arm; then in full view of the latticed window of the
kitchen and scullery department, she sallied forth across the greensward to
the stables beyond, Rachel's brown hand tucked in her own.
"Laws a me!" It was the scullery maid who screamed this out. "She's got on
Miss Parrott's coral beads."
"You're a ninny!" cried the cook, turning on her in disdain; "go back to
your pots and kettles, Ann. Whatever would she have to do with the
Mistress's beads? It's some old string you see around her neck."
"It tell you it's Miss Parrott's red beads!" declared Ann stoutly. She
might be sent back to her work among the pots and kettles, but she would
stick fast to her tale. "I seen 'em when I went up to Miss Parrott's room
with the bellows I'd cleaned this very morning, through the little winders
to her cupboard, an' I'd know 'em anywhere."
The cook stamped her foot, shaking the crash towel which she still
retained, and Ann withdrew to those inner precincts that were considered
her department.
Meanwhile, Miss Parrott was talking to Simmons, who, touching his hat
respectfully when he saw her approach, now came up to await her commands.
"Have the goodness to open the brougham door, Simmons," said Miss Parrott,
going through the carriage house to the corner where that ancient vehicle
was stored.
Simmons obeyed wonderingly, with an eye askance at Rachel, by the other
side of Miss Parrott, eagerly pressing forward.
"Now jump in," said Miss Parrott, but this command was not needed, for
Rachel was already within the family coach and prowling around on the old
green leather cushion and over the floor with both nervous hands.
"It isn't--oh, yes, it is!" and up she came, red and shining, to hold out a
small, white envelope.
Miss Parrott leaned against the brougham, and broke the seal. Rachel, her
whole heart in one glad thrill of joy, made little sign except to heave a
deep sigh of relief that the note had been found. Simmons, seeing no excuse
for lingering further, went back to one of the carriages to go through the
form of inspecting its exterior, while he still kept an eye employed in the
direction of his mistress.
"Dear Miss Parrott" (so the note ran), "I really do not think it is wise to
ask Rachel to remain over night. I will explain later. Another time,
perhaps she may do so. Yours respectfully, Almira Henderson."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Parrott to herself, and, folding up the little
note into many creases, she stood lost in thought. "Well, I suppose I must
yield to the parson's wife, for she has some good reason. But the child
shall stay next time."
Rachel, whose spirits had risen, since it was quite positive that the note
was not lost, now seized Miss Parrott's hand and hopped and skipped by her
side across the green grass on their return to the mansion. Simmons came
out of his retirement, his chamois skin with which he had been ostensibly
polishing up a carriage, still in his hand, to stand in the doorway to
watch them.
"Well, I _am_ surprised," he declared, quite slowly and impressively,
as befitted a serving-man to an old genteel family.
"Oh, let's go in there," cried Rachel, catching sight of the tall
hollyhocks behind a wicket gate and pulling at the long, slender fingers.
Miss Parrott hesitated.
"Well, just one peep," she said, "for it is near to luncheon time," and she
pulled out the watch from her belt. But to Rachel "a peep" meant all the
world, so she dropped the fingers and raced through the gateway, to get
there first and thus make it last as long as possible.
"Oh, oh!" she cried, her little dark face aflame with delight, "it's the
most beautiful place." Then she began to run up and down all the narrow
paths marking the circles and hearts and diamonds in which the
old-fashioned garden was laid out, and sniffing the fragrance as she ran.
Miss Parrott seated herself on a stone seat by the fountain in the center.
Her delight was quite equal to Rachel's, and the thin, wrinkled face
assumed a more peaceful expression than it had carried for many a day, so
that when Hooper came to summon her to luncheon, he was fairly taken aback
at its unwonted cheer.
"Rachel!" Miss Parrott's voice had a pleasant ring to it. Rachel came
dancing along a little curving path, the red coral beads flying up and down
on her breast, her cheeks nearly as red. "Oh, it's perfectly beautiful
here," she cried.
"Do you like it?" Miss Parrott's thin cheek glowed, too. It carried her
back to the day when she as a child had been skipping in that old garden,
and her heart gave a throb at the thought that there were perhaps in store
for her many delights yet, through Rachel's enjoyment of the old-fashioned
flowers and shrubs.
"But come, child," she brought herself up suddenly to say, with a little
laugh; "Hooper has summoned us to luncheon, and we must obey."
"Do you have to obey a servant?" asked Rachel, coming out of her dance to
fall into step by her side, and looking up with wide-open eyes.
"Always," said Miss Parrott most positively, "else they won't obey me, if I
don't. It's system that makes everything comfortable, Rachel."
As Rachel knew nothing whatever about system, she followed silently, her
small head full of the beautiful garden in which she had been rioting, and
which--oh, joy!--Miss Parrott promised she should visit again, when the
luncheon was over. And seated at the polished mahogany table, she was so
lost in thought that Miss Parrott, in state at the other end, was obliged
to speak to her twice before she looked up.
"Finish your soup, child," said Miss Parrott.
Rachel hadn't even begun it, and she now seized the first thing upon which
her hand rested, a heavy silver fork. Hooper, back of his mistress's chair,
darted forward to put the right implement before her. But Rachel gave him a
withering glance that stopped him half-way. "You don't need to come. I've
got it"; and she held up her spoon triumphantly, and ever after, all
through the meal, she seemed to view his necessary advances as so many
affronts, intended to show up her lack of manners, and she exercised all
her wits to keep him at bay. So that the old butler was glad when the meal
was over.
But long before that time arrived, Rachel had leaned back in her tall,
carved chair, letting her knife and fork rest on her plate, while she
feasted her eyes over the table, what it held, and then around the whole
apartment.
"There's some of the same flowers like the ones in the garden," she said,
bringing her gaze back to point to the old-fashioned silver vase and its
nodding clusters in the center of the table. "What are they?"
"Those are larkspur," said Miss Parrott, craning her neck to see around the
high silver service from which she poured her tea.
"And what's the other, this side?" Rachel bobbed over on her chair, till
Hooper involuntarily closed his eyes, expecting she would go entirely off
from her chair, and he didn't want to see it, it would be so disgraceful at
a Parrott table.
"That?" Miss Parrott, too, leaned over on her chair. "Oh--why, that's a
ragged robin, Rachel."
"_Ragged robin!_" repeated Rachel, hopping off from her chair. "Oh, I
want to see it," and she ran around the table-end, and leaned over to get a
better view. "'Tisn't a bit ragged," she cried, very much disappointed,
"and besides, he isn't there."
"Oh, Rachel!" exclaimed Miss Parrott, in dismay. "You must not do so; we
never leave our chairs when we are at the dining-table."
Rachel, thus admonished, scuttled back to her seat, while Hooper groaned
and pretended not to see anything. But she kept her black eyes fastened on
the ragged robins. "There isn't any bird there," she said.
"What, child?"
"You said there was a robin in those flowers," said Rachel again, using her
little brown fingers to designate the vase and its contents, "and that he
was ragged, and there isn't any."
"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Miss Parrott; then she laughed. "The flowers are
called ragged robins, Rachel," she said.
"Oh!" said Rachel; then she laughed, too, a merry little peal, that just
bubbled over because she was happy.
"Now eat your luncheon," said Miss Parrott. "Hooper, you may give her some
more milk."
"I don't want any more milk," said Rachel, waving him off with quite an
air. "I've got lots and lots"--peering into her cup. She took up her knife
and fork again, but, looking over them, found so many things to call for
more attention than they seemed to be worthy of, that she soon laid them
down again upon her plate.
"Where did you used to sit when you was a little girl?" she asked suddenly,
when she had been reflecting a bit.
"I? Oh, I sat at the side of the table," said Miss Parrott, starting, as
she was thus hastily summoned down into her past.
"Then can't I sit there now?" cried Rachel, flying out of her chair again.
"Say, can't I? Do let me." She ran clear around the table and hung over
Miss Parrott's chair.
Hooper groaned again and looked steadfastly out of the opposite window.
"My child," exclaimed Miss Parrott; her tone was very grave, but she put
her long arm around Rachel and drew her closely to her, "remember what I
said: you must not leave your chair during a meal."
"I forgot," Rachel flew back again, not waiting for her request to be
granted, and sat down meekly in her place.
"And you must eat something," continued Miss Parrott, glancing at the
little girl's plate, and with dreadful qualms at her old heart for having
been severe. "If you don't, Rachel, Mrs. Henderson won't let you come here
again."
The solemn butler folded and unfolded his hands, while his face expressed
the belief that such a calamity could possibly be borne.
"And if you didn't come, Rachel"--Miss Parrott took up her cup of tea, and
set it down again untouched--"I should feel very sorry; I should indeed,"
she added, with a little catch in her throat.
"So should I," said Rachel abruptly; then she picked up her knife and fork
and began to eat as fast as she could.
"Oh, my dear!" cried Miss Parrott, quite horrified, "not so fast! Pray
don't, Rachel"--looking down the table-length in distress.
Rachel by this time was alive to the disgrace she was undergoing, and she
turned quite pale, and deserting her food altogether, sat stiff and
straight on her chair, too miserable to care for anything. Miss Parrott
bore this for a breathing-space, and then without a warning she slipped off
from her chair and went quickly down to the end of the table.
"I'm not blaming you, you poor little thing," she declared, bending over
the dark hair; "don't think so, Rachel."
Rachel turned with a swift movement and hid her face in the laces falling
from Miss Parrott's breast.
"I want to go home to Mrs. Henderson's," she sobbed.
"We don't care for any more luncheon, Hooper," said Miss Parrott hoarsely,
taking Rachel's hand, "We will go into the other room," and she led her off
sobbing.
When Rachel reached Hooper, however, standing petrified with surprise, she
looked up at him defiantly and brushed the tears from her cheek.
And after they had passed out, Hooper still stood in a daze. At last he
came out of it, and, ejaculating, "Well, I never did!" he began to clear
the table.
Once outside, Miss Parrott turned suddenly.
"We'll go back to the garden," she said.
This pleased Rachel very much, and she forgot her distress and
mortification, and actually smiled up into the old face.