ROBIN ASSERTS HERSELF
The coming of Percival Tubbs to Gray Manor added the one sweet drop to
poor Mrs. Budge's cup of bitterness. Though he brought vividly back
heartbreaking memories of young Chistopher the Third's school days, when
she had waited each day for the lad's boisterous charge upon the kitchen
after the "bite" which was his and her little secret, she hoped to find
in him an ally. _He_ would see how ridiculous it was to have a Forsyth
girl, anyway, and especially a girl who limped around the house like a
scared rabbit, afraid to ask for a crumb. If this Gordon had been a boy,
as they had planned, another comely, happy youth, why, she could have
soon learned to love him. But a girl--how would she look sitting at
Master Christopher's desk, in his chair! Something was all wrong
somewhere, but Percival Tubbs would find out and say what's what.
With this hope strong in her breast she made excuse to go into the
Chinese room, for the Chinese room was only separated from the library
by heavy curtains through which voices could be easily overheard. And
Harkness had said the lawyer and the tutor were talking in the library.
Robin's guardian had given much thought to this interview with the
tutor. Robin's fate worried him not a little. He had, in the few days,
grown very fond of Robin, and he hated to leave her with Harkness and
Budge and this Percival Tubbs, a poor sort of companionship where a
fifteen-year-old girl's happiness was concerned.
"I must make Tubbs see that the child is different--" he was thinking
just as Mrs. Budge tiptoed into the Chinese room.
"Miss Gordon is not like other children and you'll have to plan your
school work a little differently with her," he began, speaking slowly.
"She's bright enough and knows much more about some things than most
girls her age--and nothing at all about others. What I want you to do is
to go easy; easy, that's it. I rather imagine she's always taken a lot
on her own shoulders and I don't believe she's ever thought much of
herself. If you can develop a little assertiveness in her--she'll need
it, here--"
"Yes. She'll need it here," echoed the tutor, because he thought he
ought to say something. He was a tall, lanky man whose shoulders sagged
as though something about them had broken under the strain of being
dignified; his face narrowed from an impressive dome of a forehead to a
straggling Van Dyke beard which he always stroked with the fingers of
his left hand. He was the old type of schoolmaster whom the rapid
forward stride of education had left far behind. His summons to Gray
Manor had come rather in the way of a life-saver and he did not intend
to allow the fact that the Forsyth heir had turned out to be a girl,
perturb him in the least. And so long as his rooms at the Manor were
comfortable, his food good and his salary certain, he could adapt
himself to any fool theory this lawyer guardian might care to advance.
Mr. Allendyce stared hard at the other, his face wrinkled in his effort
to say the right thing.
"Oh, let her have her head," he finished finally. And he liked that idea
so well that he repeated it. "Let her have her head. Do you understand
me? Never mind what's in the old schoolbooks. If she'd rather take a
walk than study Latin verbs, well, let her. I want her to be happy
here--happy, that's most important. You've heard of flowers that bloom
only in shelter and sunshine? This youngster isn't unlike--"
"Well, I never! No, I _never!... I never!_" Mrs. Budge's gasp, rising in
a crescendo, almost betrayed her presence. She gave a pillow a mighty
jab. As though it were not bad enough to bring the girl to the house in
the first place without paying a man a fancy price to teach her to have
her own way! "Flowers! Humph! Old fools--" Unable to endure another word
in silence she stalked off to her own quarters.
In the butler's pantry she found Beryl arranging real flowers in a
squatty Bristol glass bowl and humming gaily as she did so. Now Beryl
should have beep upstairs marking the new linen and she should not be
singing as though she owned the whole world. These two transgressions
and the sight of the bright blossoms in the girl's hand brought the
climax to the old woman's wrath. All Beryl's shortcomings tumbled off
her tongue in an incoherent flow of ill-temper. A stormy scene resulted
which left the old housekeeper spent and Beryl blazing with indignation.
Consequently, when poor Robin, depressed from her first hour with the
tutor, trying not to feel that Gray Manor was going to be a prison
instead of a castle, sought out her new friend she found her throwing
her few possessions into a cheap suitcase that lay, opened, across her
narrow bed.
"Oh, what are you doing?" cried Robin in alarm.
"I'm going--that's what. She fired me."
Robin's first thought upon awaking that morning had been of Beryl; she
had suffered the keenest impatience all through the trying morning,
longing to go in search of her new friend. She could not lose her
now--for a hundred Budges.
"Oh, I won't let you go!"
"A lot _you_ could do!" cried Beryl scornfully, tears very close. "I
just can't please the old thing. But I hate to go home." She sat down,
dolefully, on the edge of the bed. "I wanted to stay until I had earned
two hundred dollars."
Two hundred dollars! That seemed such a very big amount of money to
Robin that she sat silent, thinking about it.
Beryl, misinterpreting her quiet, tossed her head. "I s'pose that
doesn't mean much to you. But it does to me--'specially when I have to
earn it." Then, with a flash of temper: "What do you know about wanting
some one thing with all your whole heart and knowing just where you can
get it and not having the money?"
Beryl made her tragedy very real and pouring out her troubles always
brought her a grain of comfort.
"I've never had a thing in my life that I wanted," she finished.
"Oh, Beryl, I'm so sorry."
"Sorry! Why, a lucky little thing like you are can't even know what I'm
talking about. That's why I said we couldn't be friends. _I've_ had to
work at home like a slave ever since I can remember. Pop's sick all the
time and cross, and poor mother looks so tired and tries to be so
cheerful and brave that your heart aches for her. And even when you're
poor, a girl wants things, pretty things and to do things like other
girls--and work as hard as you can you can't ever seem to reach them. I
get just sick of it. I thought--if I could get this money--"
"Did you want it for your mother?" broke in Robin, sympathetically.
Beryl's face flushed redder. "Well, not exactly. That's the way it
always is in books, but in life, when you're poor, it's each fellow for
himself and there's not any time for your grand sounding self-sacrifice.
I wanted it to buy a violin. That thing I've got's nothing but a cheap
old fiddle. And I can play--I _know_ I can play, or could if I could get
a good violin. I took lessons from an old Belgian who lived above us and
I played once for Martini at the theatre and he said--but what's the use
of caring? What's the use of _thinking_ about it? All a girl like me can
do is just want big things!"
"Oh, Beryl," breathed Robin, a tremble on her lips. She wanted very much
to make Beryl understand that she was not the "lucky thing" Beryl
thought her; that she knew, too, what it was to want something and not
to have it, though perhaps she had not known it as cruelly as Beryl had,
for Jimmie had always contrived to cover their bleak moments with a
makeshift contentment. "Oh, Beryl, honestly I know just how you feel. I
wish I could help you. Maybe I can. My allowance seems awfully big and I
can't ever spend it all--"
"Well, I'm not a beggar and I'm not hinting for your money," flared
Beryl.
"I didn't mean--" Robin began, then faltered. Beryl had spoken with such
real anger that she was frightened. Beryl, turning back to her packing,
gathered up an armful of clothing on top of which lay an oblong bundle.
Its wrappings were old and loose so that as Beryl flounced her burden
toward the suitcase, the content of the package slipped out and down to
the floor. Robin stared in amazement for there lay a doll in faded satin
finery.
With a short, ashamed laugh, Beryl picked it up. "_That_ old thing," she
exclaimed, in half-apology.
Robin caught her arm. "Wait--oh, wait--let me see it!"
"It's just an old doll I've kept."
"It--it looks like my Cynthia. Oh, _please_ just let me look at it. It's
like a doll--I lost, once, ever so long ago." She examined the pretty
clothing.
Now Beryl stared at Robin as though to find in her face a likeness to
the little girl who had deserted her doll.
"Lost? And I found it in Sheridan Square. A little girl went off and
left it. I waited awhile, then I took the doll home."
"Oh, how funny! How _funny_! It was me, Beryl. I'd been playing and Mr.
Tony called to me to hurry and I forgot--and you found it. Why, I cried
myself to sleep night after night thinking poor Cynthia was unhappy
somewhere."
"And I called her my orphan doll and loved her because I thought she
missed her real mother--"
"She was the loveliest dolly I ever had!"
"She was the loveliest dolly I ever saw!"
Both girls burst into a peal of laughter. They sat on the edge of the
bed, the doll between them, the packing forgotten.
Robin clapped her hands. "And to think we find each other now. It's like
a story. I went back to the park all alone that evening and would have
been lost if it hadn't been for my--" she broke off short and flushed.
She was going to tell Beryl about her play-prince but then, Beryl might
laugh and she did not want that.
Beryl's face suddenly grew grave as she smoothed out a fold of the
doll-garment.
"I always kept the doll put away. I never played with it because--" She
hesitated a moment. "That night that I found the doll was a dreadful
night. I wasn't quite six but I'll always remember it. At first mother
and I were so happy, over finding the doll and because Pop had just
gotten a raise. It seemed as though everything were going to be
wonderful and we felt as rich as could be. We called the doll a lucky
doll. And mother dressed me up in her green beads that Father Murphy,
back in Ireland, had given her when she told him she was going to marry
Pop. And we had dumplings--ugh, I've hated dumplings ever since. And
then--"
"What happened?"
"They came for Mom, some man from the hospital. Pop had been terribly
hurt. And, well--nothing's been lucky since. It's just as I said;
mother's had to work and Dale's had to work and Pop just sits in a chair
and scolds and--well, I never wanted to take the doll out when mother
could see it--after all that."
Robin made no effort to conceal how deeply Beryl's story had moved her.
"Oh, Beryl, I'm so sorry. But maybe things will change. They'll have
to--Jimmie always said, it's a long lane that has no turning. I'm so
glad it was you who found my Cynthia. It might have been some one who
wouldn't have loved her at all."
"I s'pose you ought to have her now."
"Oh, no, no. She's yours. Anyway, that doesn't matter," and Robin added
triumphantly, "because we're really truly friends now, no matter what
you say. Cynthia has brought us together."
Beryl shook her head.
"That old crank--" she began.
Robin stamped her foot in impatience. "I don't care a bit about Mrs.
Budge. My guardian told me that I could have anything I wanted here just
for the asking and he's made me the silliest big allowance that three
girls couldn't spend. Oh, I've a plan! Ought not a girl like me have a
companion? Don't they most always in books? You shall stay here at Gray
Manor as my--chum."
Beryl still looked doubtful. "I'm too young--"
"That's just why I want you. Oh, I just can't bear to think of my
guardian going away and leaving me here alone. You see I promised myself
that I'd be happy while Jimmie's having his chance--that's why I came,
you know. But this house is so big and so old and Mr. Harkness and Mrs.
Budge are so old that I know it's going to be hard not to think of
Jimmie and our lovely home and the birds. But if you'd stay it would be
easier. Oh, say you will, say you will."
Beryl stared at Robin with a suspicious scrutiny. She firmly believed
that rich people never did anything except for themselves and Robin, no
doubt, was like all the others. Yet she was such a queer little thing
that perhaps she _was_ trying to be "nice" to her and make a soft place
for her. And Beryl would not allow _that_ for a moment.
"You can study with me, too. That Mr. Tubbs isn't so very bad. And we'll
read together out of all those books in the library. And play--I never
had a real chum because Jimmie thought the girls and boys who went to
the school I did, might make fun of my being lame. Poor Jimmie, he
always minded my being lame much more than I did because he's an artist
and shivers when anything isn't perfect. You shall have a bed in my
room--there's ever so much space. Oh, say you will."
Beryl frowned, uncertainly. "I don't want a penny I don't earn. But if I
can really _do_ things for you--"
"Oh, of course you can, lots of things. But you shan't wear those
uniforms--for then you wouldn't be a girl like me. Oh, we'll have _such_
fun. Let's take this stuff right down."
It took the girls only a very little time to transfer Beryl's belongings
and to establish them in Robin's room, Beryl working mechanically,
unable to believe her good fortune. Then, at Robin's command, she
followed her while she went in search of her guardian.
Cornelius Allendyce and Percival Tubbs, sitting in a blue cloud of cigar
smoke, were pleasantly discussing the pros and cons of the tariff
question upon which they agreed, when Robin interrupted them.
"Please excuse me, but this is very important." Her breathlessness
startled the two men. "I've engaged Beryl to be my chum. I--I thought I
might be lonely here at Gray Manor. I want her to study with me, too.
And do everything. This is she."
Cornelius Allendyce's mouth had dropped open from sheer amazement;
suddenly it broadened into a grin. Here was Miss Gordon taking her
"head" at once, without so much as one lesson. He glanced at Percival
Tubbs but that good gentleman was stroking his silky beard quite
indifferently.
"I'd rather have Beryl than anyone else, 'cause she's almost my own age
and we like each other. Shall I tell Mrs. Budge or--"
"Without so much as a by-your-leave!" murmured the guardian. He surveyed
Beryl; she seemed like a wholesome, spirited sort and the idea of a
little companion for Miss Gordon was not a bad one, not at all--strange
he hadn't thought of it.
"Perhaps, Miss Gordon, you'd better tell her yourself. You must
begin--holding your own, my dear. Don't forget--ever, that you are a
Forsyth, and that name has great power over Hannah Budge."
Robin did not stop to ponder what he meant or why a twinkle shone in his
eyes. She rang the bell as her guardian indicated, then waited with a
resolute squaring of her small chin, for Harkness' coming.
"Please, Mr. Harkness, will you bring Mrs. Budge here? There's something
I want to tell you both."
Mrs. Budge, as she hunted out a clean apron, grumbled at the unusual
summons.
"The girl herself, you say?" she asked, as she followed Harkness to the
library.
Her astonishment changed to white wrath when Robin, standing by her
guardian's chair, spoke.
"I wanted to tell you that Beryl Lynch is going to stay here as my
companion. I'm going to give her half of my room so that I won't be
lonely and please set a place for her next to me at the table."
Once again Cornelius Allendyce caught the twinkle in the butler's eye
which should not be in a Forsyth butler's eye at all. But there was no
twinkle about Mrs. Budge; her cheeks puffed in her effort to speak
without strangling.
"If that piece--" she began, but she was quickly interrupted from every
side. Both Harkness and Cornelius Allendyce cried out, the one
pleadingly, the other in warning: "Careful, Mrs. Budge." Then Robin
stepped forward and slipped her hand through Beryl's arm.
"Please, Mrs. Budge, I have made Beryl promise to stay. She didn't want
to but I begged her. And if anyone is unkind to her it's just the same
as being--unkind to me. That is all," she finished grandly, with an
imperious little motion of her hand that waved the irate woman from the
room before she knew she was moving.
"Now you can't say as that wasn't like a Forsyth," asserted Harkness,
proudly, belowstairs. "If Missy wants a young lydy for a companion,
well, she's a right to the kind of young lydy she wants." But Budge had
escaped the reach of his voice.
In the library Cornelius Allendyce was patting Robin on the head.
"Well, you've won out in the first skirmish, my dear. But keep your
weapons at hand."