To-day Hugh John let me see a letter which he had received from Cissy
Carter in Paris. As no one will see my diary, and also because there is
nothing very private in the letter, I have jotted down as much as I can
remember in my locked book. It was written from number twenty of the
Avenue d'Argenson, and the date was the day before yesterday. It began
without any greetings (as was their custom).
"HUGH JOHN--People have written to me about you and Elizabeth
Fortinbras--not nice people like you, me, and the Rat" (this
was their unkind and meaningless name for--me, Miss Priscilla
Picton Smith). "I don't much care what any one writes, of
course. For I know that if ever you change your mind, you will
do as you said, and send back _your_ half of the crooked
sixpence. You need not put in a word along with it. Only just
send the half of the sixpence by the registered letter post,
and I shall understand. I promise to do the same by
you.--CISSY."
Now it must long have been clear that my brother Hugh John is as
careless about his own concerns as he is careful for other people. He
naturally took Cissy at her word, and having a conscience quite void of
reproach with regard to Elizabeth Fortinbras or any other, very
naturally thought no more about the matter.
But he should have been cautious how he disposed of the letter--in the
fire, for choice. Only, you see, that was not Hugh John's way. He stuck
it in his pocket-book, and pulled it out with his handkerchief just in
time for Mrs. Nipper Donnan, on her way home with her groceries, to find
it. In the little skin-covered book (which had once been "imitation
shark"), wrapped in a piece of tissue-paper, was also the half of a
crooked sixpence.
Next morning but two, in far-away Paris, in front of a tall plastered
house with big barren windows, Miss Cecilia Carter, walking to and fro
with two of her companions, had an odd-looking, ill-addressed packet put
into her hand. She opened it with a little glow of expectation--and
there in her hand lay the other half of the crooked sixpence!
Cissy Carter did not faint. She did not cry out. There is no record,
even, that she went pale. At any rate the school registers bear out the
fact that a quarter of an hour after she took her lesson in "theory"
from the music-master, Herr Rohrs. She only felt that something had
broken within her--something not to be mended or ever set right,
something she could not even have the relief of speaking about as the
French girls did, rhapsodizing eternally about the officers who rode
past the gate, slacking the speed of their horses a little that they
might stare up the avenue along which the young girls walked
two-and-two, also on the look-out for them.
She had told Hugh John often just what had happened. She had cast it in
his face, when the pretty spite of her temper got the better of her,
that, some day or other, it would come to this. But in her heart of
hearts she had never really thought so for a moment.
Hugh John untrue! Oh, no! _That_ was impossible! It did not enter into
the scheme of things.
Yes, certainly, twice, in a fit of "the pet," she had sent hers back to
Hugh John. But this was different--oh, so different! How different, only
those who knew Hugh John could understand. When _he_ did such a thing,
he meant something by it. Hugh John had no silly flashes of temper--like
a girl--like her, Cissy Carter.
So she thought to herself as she went about her work, the rodent which
we children call the "Sorrow Rat" gnawing all day at her heart, the
noise of the class-rooms, ordinarily so deafening, dull and distant in
her ear.
All over! Yes, it was all over. Hugh John had wished it so, and from
that, she well knew, there was no appeal! And there was (I know it well)
one sad little heart the more in that great city of Paris, where (if one
must believe the books) there are too many already.
But Cissy did not take offense, and I had my weekly letter as usual.
Perhaps it was a little more staid, a little less "newsy," and her
interest in Herr Rohrs not quite so profound. But really I put all that
down to the cold and headache of which Cissy complained in a
postscript--and, not even there, was there a hint as to the other half
of the crooked sixpence! Which is a record for one woman--girl, I
mean--writing to another.
Hugh John was anything but sentimental, and it was not his habit to take
out the relic wrapped in the tissue-paper oftener than the rearrangement
of his scanty finances compelled. He would just give his pocket a slap,
and if he felt a lump--why, he thought no more about the matter. He was
preparing for college, and, knowing no reason why he should be uneasy,
he had immersed himself in his books. He had not the smallest idea that
the sharkskin purse, empty, lay in Mrs. Nipper Donnan's drawer, or that
the two pieces of the crooked sixpence were wrapped together in the same
tissue-paper in far-away Paris.