WITH BETTY AND EUGENIA
When the Little Colonel reached the hotel, the omnibus was leaving the
door to go to the railroad station, a few blocks away. Thinking that Betty
and Eugenia might be on the coming train, she went into the parlour to
wait for the return of the omnibus. She had bought a box of chocolate
creams at the cake shop on the corner to divide with Hero.
Fidelia had wandered down to the parlour in her absence, and now seated at
the old piano was banging on its yellow keys with all her might. She
played unusually well for a girl of her age, but Lloyd had a feeling that
a public parlour was not a place to show off one's accomplishments, and
her nose went up a trifle scornfully as she entered.
Then she caught sight of herself in the mirror over the mantel, and her
expression changed instantly.
"For mercy sakes!" she said to herself. "I look like one of the proud and
haughty sistahs in 'Cindahella,' as if I thought the earth wasn't good
enough for me to step on. It certainly isn't becoming, and it would make
me furious if anybody looked at me in such a cool, scornful way. I know
that I feel that way inside whenevah I talk to Fidelia. I wondah if she
sees it in my face, and that's what makes her cross and scratchy, like a
cat that has had its fur rubbed the wrong way. Just for fun I believe I'll
pretend to myself for ten minutes that I love her deahly, and I'll smile
when I talk to her, just as if she were Betty, and nevah pay any attention
to her mean speeches. I'll give her this one chance. Then if she keeps on
bein' hateful, I'll nevah have anything moah to do with her again."
So while Fidelia played on toward the end of the waltz, purposely
regardless of Lloyd's presence, Lloyd, sitting behind her, looked into the
mirror, and practised making pleasant faces for Fidelia's benefit.
The music came to a close with a loud double bang that made Lloyd start up
from her chair with a guilty flush, fearing that she had been caught at
her peculiar occupation. Before Fidelia could say anything, Lloyd walked
over to her with the friendliest of her practised smiles, and held out the
box of chocolate creams.
"Take some," she said. "They are the best I've had since I left Kentucky."
"Thanks," said Fidelia, stiffly, screwing around on the piano-stool, and
helping herself to just one. But feeling the warmth of Lloyd's cordial
tone, urging her to take more, she thawed into smiling friendliness, and
took several. "They are delicious!" she exclaimed. "You got them at the
cake shop on the corner, didn't you? There are two awfully nice American
girls stopping at this hotel who took me in there one day for some.
They've been in Kentucky, too. The one named Elizabeth lives there."
"Why, it must be Betty and Eugenia!" cried Lloyd. "The very girls we came
here to meet. Do _you_ know them?"
"Not very well. We've only been here a few days. But I dearly love the one
you call Betty. She came into my room one night when I had the tooth-ache,
and brought a spice poultice and a hot-water bag. Mamma was at a concert,
and Fanchette was cross, and I was so miserable and lonesome I wanted to
die. But Elizabeth knew exactly what to do to stop the pain, and then she
stayed and talked to me for a long time. She told me about a house party
she went to last year, where the girls all caught the measles at a gypsy
camp, and she nearly went blind on account of it."
"That was _my_ house pahty," exclaimed the Little Colonel, "and my mothah
is Betty's godmothah, and Betty is goin' to live at my house all next
wintah, and go to school with me."
Fidelia swung farther around on the piano-stool, and faced Lloyd in
surprise. "And are _you_ the Little Colonel!" she cried. "From what
Elizabeth said, I thought she was pretty near an angel!" Fidelia's tone
implied more plainly than her words that she wondered how Betty could
think so.
A cutting reply was on the tip of Lloyd's tongue, but the sight of her
face in the mirror checked it. She only said, pleasantly, "Betty is
certainly the loveliest girl in the world, and--"
"There she is now!" interrupted Fidelia, nodding toward the door as voices
sounded in the hall and footsteps came out from the office.
"Oh, they'll be so surprised!" said Lloyd, looking back with a radiant
face as she ran toward the door. "We came two whole days earlier than they
expected!"
Fidelia heard the joyful greeting, the chorus of surprised exclamations as
Lloyd flew first at Betty, then at Eugenia, with a hug and a kiss, then
turned to greet her Cousin Carl.
"Betty will never look at me again," Fidelia thought, with a throb of
jealousy, turning away from the sight of their happy meeting, and
beginning to strike soft aimless chords on the piano. "I wish I were one
of them," she whispered, with the tears springing to her eyes. "I hate to
be always on the edge of things, and never in them. We never stay in a
place long enough at a time to make any real friends or have any good
times."
Chattering and laughing, and asking eager questions, the girls hurried up
the stairs to Mrs. Sherman's room. Almost a year had gone by since Eugenia
and Lloyd had parted on the lantern decked lawn at Locust, the last night
of the house party. The year had made little difference in Lloyd, but
Eugenia had grown so tall that the change was startling.
"Really, you are taller than I," exclaimed Mrs. Sherman, in the midst of
an affectionate greeting, as she held her off for a better view.
"And doesn't she look stylish and young ladyfied, with her skirts down to
her ankles," added Lloyd. "You'd nevah think that she was only fifteen,
would you?"
"I had to have them made long," explained Eugenia, much flattered by
Lloyd's speech. It was her greatest wish to appear "grown up." "Papa says
that I am probably as tall now as I shall ever be, and really I'd look
ridiculous with my dresses any shorter."
Mrs. Sherman noticed presently, with a smile, that Eugenia seemed to have
gained dignity with her added height. There was something amusingly
patronising in her manner toward the younger girls. She answered Lloyd
several times with an "Oh, no, child" that was almost grandmotherly in its
tone.
"But here is somebody who has come back just as sweet and childlike as
ever," thought Mrs. Sherman, twisting one of Betty's brown curls around
her finger. Then she said aloud. "Was the trip as delightful as you
dreamed it would be, my little Tusitala?"
"Oh, _yes_, godmother," sighed Betty, blissfully. "It was a thousand times
better! And the best of it is my eyes are as well as ever. I needn't be
afraid, now, of that 'long night' that haunted me like a bad dream."
All during dinner Fidelia kept looking across at the merry party sitting
at the next table, and wished she could be with them. She could not help
hearing all they said, for they were only a few feet away, and there was
no one talking at the table where she sat. The boys were in the children's
dining-room with Fanchette, and her mother was spending the evening with
some friends at the new hotel across the way.
"I'm going to make believe that I'm one of them," the lonely child said to
herself, smiling as she caught a friendly nod from Betty. So she listened
eagerly to Mr. Forbes's account of their visit to Venice, and to the
volcano of Vesuvius, and laughed with the others over the amusing
experiences Betty and Eugenia had in Norway with a chambermaid who could
not understand them, and in Holland with an old Dutch market-woman, the
day they became separated from Mr. Forbes, and were lost for several
hours.
Fidelia's salad almost choked her, there was such an ache in her throat
when she heard them planning an excursion for the next day. She had no one
to make plans with, and when she was taken sightseeing it was by a French
teacher, more intent on improving her pupil's accent than in giving her a
happy time.
As they were finishing their dessert, Mr. Sherman suddenly remembered that
he had a letter in his pocket for Lloyd, which he had forgotten to give
her.
"It is from Joyce," she said, looking at the post-mark. "Oh, if she were
only heah, what a lovely time we could have! It would be like havin'
anothah house pahty. May I read it now at the table, mothah? It is to all
of us."
Fidelia almost held her breath. She was so afraid that Mrs. Sherman would
suggest waiting until they went to the parlour. There she could no longer
be one of them, no matter how hard she might pretend. She wanted the
interesting play to go on as long as possible. She did not know that she
ought not to listen. There were many things she had never been taught.
Lloyd began to read aloud.
"DEAR GIRLS:--You will be in Tours by the time this letter
reaches you, and I am simply wild to be there with you. Oh, if I
could be there only one day to take you to all the old places!
Do please go to the home of the 'Little Sisters of the Poor,'
and ask for Sister Denisa. Give her my love, and tell her that I
often think of her. And do go to that funny pie shop on the Rue
Nationale, where everybody is allowed to walk around and help
themselves and keep their own count. And eat one of those tiny
delicious tarts for me. They're the best in the world.
"I can't think of anything else to-day, but that walk which you
will be taking soon without me. I can shut my eyes and see every
inch of the way, as it used to look when we went home just after
sunset. There is the river Loire all rosy red in the after-glow,
and the bridge with the soldiers marching across it; and on the
other side of the river is the little old village of St.
Symphorian with its narrow, crooked streets. How I love every
old cobblestone! You will see the fat old women rattling home in
their market carts, and hear the clang and click of wooden shoes
down the streets. Then there'll be the high gate of customs in
the old stone wall that fences in the village, and the country
road beyond. You'll climb the hill with the new moon coming up
behind the tall Lombardy poplars, and go on between the fields,
turning brown in the twilight, till the Gate of the Giant
Scissors looms up beside the road like a picture out of some
fairy tale. A little farther on you'll come to Madame's dear old
villa with the high wall around it, and the laurel hedges and
lime-trees inside.
"I wonder which of you will have my room with the blue parrots
on the wall-paper. Oh, I'm _homesick_ to go back. Yet, isn't it
strange, when I was there I used to long so for America, that
many a time I climbed up in the pear-tree at the end of the
garden for a good cry. Don't forget to swing up into that
pear-tree. There's a fine view from the top.
"When you see Jules, ask him to show you the goats that chewed
up the cushions of the pony cart, the day we had our
Thanksgiving barbecue in the garden. I fairly ache to be with
you. Please write me a good long letter and tell me what you are
doing; and whenever you hear the nightingales in Madame's
garden, and the cathedral bells tolling out across the Loire,
think of your loving JOYCE."
"Let's do those things to-morrow," exclaimed Lloyd, as she folded the
letter and slipped it back into its envelope. "I don't want to waste time
on any old châteaux with the Gate of the Giant Scissors just across the
river, that we haven't seen yet."
"I have heard about that gate ever since we left America," said Mr.
Forbes, laughingly. "Nobody has taken the trouble to inform me why it is
so important, or why it was selected for a meeting-place. Somebody owes me
an explanation."
"It's only an old gate with a mammoth pair of scissors swung on a
medallion above it," said Mr. Sherman. "They were put there by a
half-crazy old man who built the place, by the name of _Ciseaux_. Joyce
Ware spent a winter in sight of it, and she came back with some wonderful
tale about the scissors being the property of a prince who went around
doing all sorts of impossible things with them. I believe the girls have
actually come to think that the scissors are enchanted."
"Oh, Papa Jack, stop teasin'!" said the Little Colonel. "You know we
don't!"
"If it is really settled that we are to go there to-morrow, I want to hear
the story," said Cousin Carl. "I make a practice of reading the history of
a place before I visit it, so I'll have to know the story of the gate in
order to take a proper interest in it."
"Come into the parlour," said Mrs. Sherman rising. "Betty will tell us."
As she turned, she saw Fidelia looking after the girls with wistful eyes,
and she read the longing and loneliness in her face.
"Wouldn't you like to come too, and hear the fairy tale with us?" she
asked, kindly holding out her hand.
A look of happy surprise came over Fidelia's face, and before she could
stammer out her acceptance of the unlooked-for invitation, Mrs. Sherman
drew her toward her and led her into the little circle in one corner of
the parlour.
"Now, we are ready, Tusitala," said Mrs. Sherman, settling herself on the
sofa, with Fidelia beside her. Shaking back her brown curls, Betty began
the fairy tale that Joyce's Cousin Kate had told one bleak November day,
to make the homesick child forget that she was "a stranger in a strange
land."
"Once upon a time, in a far island of the sea, there lived a king with
seven sons."
Word for word as she had heard it, Betty told the adventures of the
princes ("the three that were dark and the three that were fair"), and
then of the middle son, Prince Ethelried, to whom the old king gave no
portion of his kingdom. With no sword, nothing but the scissors of the
Court Tailor, he had been sent out into the world to make his fortune.
Even Cousin Carl listened with close attention to the prince's adventures
with the Ogre, in which he was victorious, because the grateful fairy whom
he had rescued laid on the scissors a magic spell.
"Here," she said, giving them into his hands again, "because thou wast
persevering and fearless in setting me free, these shall win for thee thy
heart's desire. But remember that thou canst not keep them sharp and
shining unless they are used at least once each day in some unselfish
service." After that he had only to utter his request in rhyme, and
immediately they would shoot out to an enormous size that could cut down
forests for him, bridge chasms, and reap whole wheat fields at a single
stroke.
Many a peasant he befriended, shepherds and high-born dames, lords and
lowly beggars; and at the last, when he stood up before the Ogre to fight
for the beautiful princess kept captive in the tower, it was their voices,
shouting out their tale of gratitude to him for all these unselfish
services, that made the scissors grow long enough and strong enough to cut
the ugly old Ogre's head off.
"So he married the princess," concluded Betty at last, "and came into the
kingdom that was his heart's desire. There was feasting and merrymaking
for seventy days and seventy nights, and they all lived happily ever
after. On each gable of the house he fastened a pair of shining scissors
to remind himself that only through unselfish service to others comes the
happiness that is highest and best. Over the great entrance gate he hung
the ones that served him so valiantly, saying, 'Only those who belong to
the kingdom of loving hearts can ever enter here'; and to this day they
guard the portal of Ethelried, and only those who belong to the kingdom of
loving hearts may enter the Gate of the Giant Scissors."
"Go on," said Mr. Forbes, as Betty stopped. "What happened next? I want to
hear some more."
"So did Joyce," said Betty. "She used to climb up in the pear-tree and
watch the gate, wishing she knew what lay behind it, and one day she found
out. A poor little boy lived there with only the care-taker and another
servant. The care-taker beat him and half starved him. His uncle didn't
know how he was treated, for he was away in Algiers. Joyce found this
little Jules out in the fields one day, tending the goats, and they got to
be great friends She told him this story, and they played that he was the
prince and she was the Giant Scissors who was to rescue him from the
clutches of the Ogre. She made up a rhyme for him to say. He had only to
whisper:
"'Giant Scissors, fearless friend,
Hasten, pray, thy aid to lend,'
and she would fly to help him. She really did, too, for she played ghost
one night to frighten the old care-taker, and she told Jules's uncle, when
he came back, how cruelly the poor little thing had been treated.
"Then the little prince really did come into his kingdom, for all sorts of
lovely things happened after that. The gate had been closed for years on
account of a terrible quarrel in the Ciseaux family, but at last something
Joyce did helped to make it up. The gate swung open, and the old
white-haired brother and sister went back to the home of their childhood
together, and it was Christmas Day in the morning. They had been kept from
going through the gate all those years, because the Giant Scissors
wouldn't let them pass. Only those who belong to the kingdom of loving
hearts can enter in."
"Some day you must put that all in a book, Betty," said Cousin Carl, when
she had finished. "When we go to see the gate, I'll take my camera, and
we'll get a picture of it. Now I feel that I can properly appreciate it,
having heard its wonderful history."
There was a teasing light in his eyes that made Lloyd say, "Now you're
laughin' at us, Cousin Carl, but it doesn't make any difference. I'd
rathah see that gate than any old château in France."