ROBIN'S BEGINNING
Robin had done something that couldn't be counted--or spurned--in
dollars and cents.
From door to door in the village the story spread; how Robin had gone
into the stricken cottage which even the neighbors shunned, and had
performed a last little act (and the only one) of respect for poor old
Granny, then, with her own fur around the child's neck, had taken Susy
back to the Manor. The doctor told of Robin's sensible care and how ably
she had shared with him the night's long vigil. The story was told and
re-told with little embellishments and often tears; the girls in the
Mill repeated each detail of it over their lunches, the men talked about
it in low tones as they walked homeward.
And Robin's little service had a remarkable effect upon the Mill people.
Tongues that had been most bitter against the House of Forsyth suddenly
wagged loudest in Robin's praise; some boldly foretold the beginning of
a "better day." All felt the stirring of a certain, all-promising belief
that a Forsyth, even though a small one--"cared."
But what was to be the cost, they asked one another, with anxious faces?
Upon hearing that Robin herself was ill, Beryl had rushed to the Manor,
in an agony of fear. Robin mustn't be sick--she couldn't die! It was
too dreadful--She ought never to have gone into Granny Castle's
house--or touched Susy.
Among the books Robin loved so well Beryl waited in a dumb misery for
hours, for some word. Harkness only shook his old head at her and Mrs.
Budge ignored her. Finally, standing the suspense as long as she could
she crept to the stairs and up them and in the hall above encountered a
cherry-faced white-garbed young woman.
"May I see Robin, please?" she implored desperately.
The young woman looked at her, hesitating. "Are you Beryl?" she asked.
Beryl nodded. "Then you may go in for a few moments but don't let that
old man and woman know--they've been hounding me to let them see her and
I've refused flatly."
"Oh, thank you so much. There's something I have to tell Robin before--"
Beryl simply could not say it. She closed her lips with tragic meaning.
The nurse stared at her a moment with a hint of a laugh in her eyes,
then nodded toward the door.
"Second door, there. Only a minute!" And then she went on.
Beryl opened the door, softly, her heart pounding against her ribs. What
if Robin were too ill to talk, to even listen--
Beryl had never seen Madame's bed room. It took a moment for her to
single out the great canopied bed from the other mammoth
furnishings--or to take in the small figure that occupied the exact
centre of that bed.
"Beryl!" came a glad cry and Beryl stared in amazement for the little
creature who smiled at her from a pile of soft pillows looked like
anything but a sick person; the vivid hair glowed with more aliveness
than ever, a pink, like the inner heart of a rose, tinted the creamy
skin. A tray remained on a low table by the bed, its piled dishes
indicative of a feast. Beryl's amazed eyes flashed last to these then
back to Robin's smiling face.
"Oh, Beryl, I'm so glad, _glad_ you came!" Robin reached out her arms
and Beryl rushed into them, clasping her own close about Robin.
"I--I thought you were dreadfully sick," she gasped, at last. She drew
back and looked at Robin accusingly. "_Everyone_ thinks you're
dreadfully sick."
"Then I suppose I ought to be," laughed Robin, "I'm not, though, I never
felt better in my life. But, oh, right after I knew Susy would get well
everything inside of me seemed to break into little pieces. Then that
nice Miss Sanford came and put me to bed and nursed and petted and fed
me and--here I am. She says I cannot get up until tomorrow. I'm so
anxious to see Susy!"
Beryl, still holding Robin's hand, stared off into space, uncomfortably.
She had come to the Manor to tell Robin (before Robin should die) that
she had been a mean, selfish, ungrateful thing to run away from the
Manor the way she had done and stay away--and to beg for Robin's
forgiveness. Now she found it difficult to say all this to a pinky,
glowing Robin, and Robin, instinctively guessing what was passing in
Beryl's mind, made her plea for forgiveness unnecessary by asking, with
a tight squeeze of Beryl's hand: "You won't go away, again?"
"No--at least--if you want me--if--" she stumbled.
"_If_ I want you--Beryl Lynch! It was too dreadful living here all alone
with only Mr. Tubbs and Harkness and Mrs. Budge. But, Beryl, I think
maybe everything will be different now; the first thing I knew after I
fainted was that Mrs. Budge was crying! Think of it, Beryl,
_crying_--and over me! And Mr. Tubbs ran away."
"Really, truly?"
"Yes--the poor thing was scared silly. He didn't tell a soul he was
going and after he reached New York he telephoned."
"Dale says everyone at the Mills is talking about you, Robin--and what
you did."
"Why," Robin's face sobered, "I didn't do--anything."
"Well, Dale says your going in to poor old Granny the way you did has
made everyone like you. And they were getting awfully worked up against
the Forsyths and the Mills. I will admit it seems funny to me--making
such a fuss over such a little thing. I wish--as long as you're all
right now--you had done something real heroic, like jumping into the
river to save someone or going into a burning building."
"Oh, I'd have never had the courage to do _that_," protested Robin,
shuddering.
At that moment the nurse put her head in the door.
"Three minutes are up," she warned.
"Please, can't she stay?" begged Robin, in alarm.
"I must go home, anyway, Robin, to tell mother. You have no idea how
anxious she is--everyone is. People hang around our door. I suppose they
think we have the latest news about you. Well, we have, now. And,
Robin--mother was awfully angry about my--leaving you the way I did. She
begged me to come back, long ago. I'm sorry, now, I didn't. Good-bye,
Robin. I'll be back, tomorrow."
Beryl walked to the village in a deep absorption of thought. Certain
values she had fostered had tumbled about and had to be put in order.
Here were not only hundreds of mill folk making a "fuss" over what Robin
had done, but the household of the Manor as well--old Budge, usually as
adamant as a brick wall, crying! No one loved the heroic more than
Beryl, but to her thinking it lay in a spectacular, and with a dramatic
indifference, risking one's own life for another, not in a little
unnecessary sentimental impulse. When she had heard of what Robin had
done she had declared her "crazy" to go near the Castles, to which her
mother had indignantly replied: "And are you thinking the blessed child
ever thinks of herself at all?" _That_ was the quality, of course, about
Robin that you never guessed from anything she said but that you just
felt. And the Mill people were feeling it now.
Turning these thoughts over and over, Beryl suddenly faced the
disturbing conviction that she was moulding her own young life on very
opposite lines. Tell herself as often as she liked--and it was
often--that she'd had to fight to get everything she had and to keep it,
she knew that it never crossed her mind to ask herself what she was
giving--to Dale, who carried a double burden, to poor big Danny, to her
brave little mother who had sheltered her so valiantly from the
coarsening things about her that she might keep "fine" and have "fine"
things.
The next day the nurse let Robin dress, to poor Harkness' tearful
delight. And Robin, roaming the house as though she had returned to it
from a long absence, found, indeed, the change she had prophesied. For
Mrs. Budge, in strangely genial mood, was fussily preparing more
delectable invalid dishes than a dozen convalescing Susies or well
Robins could possibly eat.
One little cloud, however, shadowed Budge's relief. She wished she
hadn't sent the letter to the lawyer-man. "If I'd remembered how my
grandmother always said to look out for the written word, and held my
tongue," she mourned and so complete was her transformation that she
forgot she had written that letter while in full pursuit of her duty to
the Forsyths--as she had seen it then.
Upon this new order of things Cornelius Allendyce arrived, unheralded,
and very tired from a long journey. Budge's letter had been forwarded to
him at Miami where he had been pleasantly recuperating from his siege of
sciatica. It had disturbed him tremendously, and he had spent the long
hours on the railroad train upbraiding himself for his neglect of his
ward. The conditions at which Budge had clumsily hinted grew more
serious as he thought of them, until he found himself wondering if
perhaps he ought not to smuggle his little ward back to her fifth-floor
home before Madame discovered the havoc she had made of the Forsyth
traditions.
Outwardly, the Manor appeared the same, to the lawyer's intense relief.
Within, the most startling change seemed the laughing voices that
floated out to him from the library. Harkness took his coat and hat and
bag a little excitedly and with repeated nods toward the library.
"Miss Robin'll be mighty glad to see you, I'm sure; but she has a lydy
guest for dinner."
"The man actually acts as though I had no right to come unannounced,"
thought Cornelius Allendyce.
Robin met him with a rush and a glad little cry. "I thought you were
never, _never_ coming! I'm so glad. But why didn't you send us word? I
want you to know Beryl's mother and Beryl. They're my best friends. And,
oh, I have _so_ much to tell you!"
"Mrs. Lynch!" A line of Budge's letter flashed across the man's mind,
yet he found himself talking to a gentle-faced woman with grave eyes and
a tender, merry mouth. And Beryl (whom Budge had called "that young
person") did not seem at all coarse or unwholesome. He did not notice
that the clothes both wore were simple and inexpensive--he only
registered the impression that the mother seemed quiet and refined and
the girl had a frank honesty in her face that was most pleasing.
Robin, indeed, had so much to tell him that he made no effort to get
"head or tail" to it; rather he lost himself in wonder at the change in
his little ward. This spirited, assured young person could not be the
same little thing he had left months ago. She'd actually grown, too.
He laughed at Robin's description of the desertion of Percival Tubbs.
"Poor man, I guess I'd driven him crazy, anyway. I simply couldn't learn
the lessons he gave me. But, oh, I haven't wasted my time, truly, for
I've gotten more out of these precious books here than I ever got out
of school. Guardian dear, _they've_ made me grow. I don't think my
pretend stories any more, either. I can't seem to, for everything about
me is so real and so big and so--so important." Robin imparted this
information with a serious note in her voice--as though she feared her
guardian might be sorry that she had put her childish "pretends" behind
her.
"Dear me," he said, "then we won't know whether you meet the Prince in
the last chapter and live happily ever after? You _have_ grown up; I
can't get used to it."
Robin blushed furiously at this and changed the subject lest her
guardian could glimpse under her flaming hair and guess the one pretty
"pretend" she still cherished.
While the girls were upstairs Mrs. Lynch told Cornelius Allendyce the
story of Susy, and Robin's visit to the old house. She told it simply
but in its every detail so that Robin's guardian could follow it very
closely. He listened, with his eyes dropped to the rug at his feet, and
for a few moments he kept them there, so that Mrs. Lynch wondered if he
were angry. Then suddenly he looked at her and a smile broke over his
face.
"Our little girl's letting down a few barriers, isn't she?" he asked,
and Mrs. Lynch, understanding him with her quick instinct, nodded with
bright eyes.
"Ah, 'tis true as true what my old Father Murphy once said to me--that
wealth is what you give, not what you get!"
The most amazing thing to the lawyer in the new order was the cheerful
importance, and the new geniality of Hannah Budge. Accustomed as he was,
from long acquaintance with the family, to her sour nature, he caught
himself watching her now in a sort of unbelief. He understood her
attentiveness to his comfort when she touched his arm and begged a word
with him.
"It's about that letter," she whispered, her eyes rolling around for any
possible eavesdropper. "I'll ask you not to tell Miss Gordon nor Timothy
Harkness. I'm old and new ways are new ways but I'll serve Miss Gordon
as I've always served the Forsyths."
A dignity in the old housekeeper's surrender touched Cornelius
Allendyce. He patted her shoulder and told her not to worry about the
letter; to be sure it had spoiled a rather nice golf match but he ought
to have run up to Wassumsic long before.
"The little girl I found isn't such a bad Forsyth, after all?" he could
not resist asking her, however. But Harkness, appearing at that moment,
spared Mrs. Budge the unaccustomed humiliation of admitting she had been
wrong.
After dinner Robin persuaded her guardian to walk with them to the
village while they escorted "Mother Lynch" home, and then stop at the
House of Laughter. There, Beryl lighted the lamps and Robin led a tour
of inspection through the rooms, telling her guardian as they went, of
her beautiful plans and their failure. At a warning sign from Beryl she
regretfully left out the generous contribution of their mysterious Queen
of Altruria. Most of the furniture, she explained, had come from the
Manor garrets.
While they were talking a knock sounded at the door. Robin opened it to
find Sophie Mack and three companions standing on the threshold.
"Mrs. Lynch said she thought you were up here," Sophie explained,
awkwardly. "We're getting up a social club and we want to know if you'll
let us meet here."
"Of course you can meet here!" Robin made no effort to control the
surprise in her voice. "That's what this little house is for."
"Maybe you'll join, sometime. As an honorary member or something like
that--" one of Sophie's companions broke in.
"Oh, I'd love to."
"We want to pay, you know," persisted Sophie.
"Of course--anything you--think you can."
The girls, refusing Robin's invitation to go into the cottage, turned
and went back to the village. Robin closed the door and leaned against
it with a long-drawn breath of delight.
"Guardian dear, _that's_ the beginning. Dale's right--they'll use it,
if I let them pay. Why are you laughing at me?"
Cornelius Allendyce's face sobered. He drew the girl to him.
"I'm not laughing. I'm only marvelling at the leaps and bounds with
which your education has gone forward. Some people die at an old age
without acquiring one smallest part of the human understanding you are
learning through these--notions--of yours."
Robin made a little face. "Notions! Beryl calls them 'crazy ideas.'
_Someone else_ called them an 'experiment.' Dear Mother Lynch is the
_only_ one who really believes in what I want to do. You see, I just
want the people here to think that a Forsyth cares whether they're happy
or not. Dale says I didn't start right and maybe I didn't--but
anyway--"--She nodded toward the door as though Sophie might still be on
the threshold, "_they're_ a beginning!"
Her guardian did not answer this and looked so strange that Robin went
no further in her confidences. Perhaps something had displeased him, she
must wait until some other time to tell him about Dale and his model and
her visit to Frank Norris.
Back in the library, before the crackling fire, Robin begged Beryl to
play for her guardian.
"She's wonderful," she whispered while Beryl was getting the violin.
"She makes you feel all funny inside."
Beryl stood in the shadow and played. Robin, watching her guardian,
thrilled with satisfaction when the man's face betrayed that he, too,
felt "all funny inside" under the magic of Beryl's bow.
"Come here, my girl," he commanded when Beryl stopped. He bent a
searching look upon her. "Come here and sit down and tell me about
yourself."
"Didn't I say she's wonderful?" chirped Robin, triumphantly.
The lawyer's adroit questioning brought out Beryl's story--of the simple
home in the tenement from which her mother shut out all that was
coarsening and degrading, stirring her child's mind and her tastes with
dreams she persistently cherished against disheartening odds; of the
Belgian musician who had first taught her small fingers and fired her
ambitions for only the best in the art; of school and the lessons she
devoured because she craved knowledge and the advantages of possessing
it.
"How long have you lived here?"
"We came last summer. Dale wanted to work where there were machines and
he got a job in the Forsyth Mills."
"You are planning to go back to New York and study?"
Beryl's face clouded. "Sometime. But I can't until I earn the money, and
it takes such a lot."
"Yes, and courage, too," added the lawyer softly, as though he were
speaking to himself.
Beryl abruptly lifted her violin from her lap to put it in the case. As
she did so, its head caught in the string of green beads which, in
honor of the occasion, she was wearing. The slender cord that held them
snapped and the pretty beads scattered over the floor.
"Oh, dear!" cried Beryl, dismayed, dropping to her knees to find them.
Robin helped her search and in a few moments they had gathered them all.
"They're only beads but they're very old and a keepsake," Beryl
explained, in apology for her moment's alarm.
"They're pretty and they're darling on you!"
"A wonderful color." The lawyer took one and examined it. "If you care
for them you'd better let me take them back to New York with me and have
them strung on a wire that will not break."
"Oh, let him, Beryl. And he can have a good clasp put on. You know you
said that clasp was poor."
Beryl hesitated a moment. Ought she to tell him the beads were her
mother's and that her mother prized them dearly? No, he might laugh at
anyone's caring a fig about just plain beads. She took the envelope
Robin brought her, dropped the beads into it, sealed it, and gave it to
Robin's guardian.
Cornelius Allendyce slept little that night. He laid it to the extreme
quiet of the hills; in reality his head whirled with the amazing
impressions that had been forced upon him.
"Extraordinary!" he muttered, staring at the night light. And he
repeated it again and again; once, when he thought of the little
woman, Mrs. Lynch, with the dreaming eyes which seemed to see beyond
things. What was the absurd thing she had said? "'Tis what you give and
not what you get is wealth." Extraordinary! And where had Robin picked
up these notions concerning the Mill people? And her House of
What-did-she-call-it? There was considerable significance about it.
Uncanny, downright uncanny, though, for a girl her age to have such a
far-reaching vision. Probably the child didn't realize, herself. Well,
there was Jeanne d'Arc, and others, too, he pondered, hazily. And this
talented girl Robin had found--a most unusual girl, who'd grown up in a
tenement like a flower among weeds, yes, he'd seen such flowers growing
amid rankest vegetation! She was not unlike Robin, herself. His mind
circled to Robin's own little fifth-floor nest and the horrible odors of
that dark stairway. Strange, extraordinary, that these two lives had
crossed. "This world's a queer world!" Both girls brought up in a
poverty that denied them all those jolly sort of advantages young girls
liked, and yet each sheltered by a mother's great love from the things
in poverty that coarsen and hurt. "Aye, a mother's love," and the little
lawyer thought of "Mother Lynch" with something very akin to reverence;
and of Jimmie, too, poor Jimmie, who, in his stumbling, mistaken way,
had tried to give a mother's love to Robin.
But suddenly the man aroused from his absorbed philosophizing and sat
bolt upright in bed. All right to think about letting down
barriers--whose barriers were they? Proud old Madame loved those
barriers--and she'd never accept, as Budge had, what Budge called the
"new ways." What then? "There'll be a reckoning--"
With a sharp little exclamation of annoyance the distraught guardian
drew his watch from under his pillow and held it to the tiny shaft of
light. "Half-past-one!" Well, he did not need to cross that bridge until
he came to it! He dug his tired head into his pillow and went to sleep
to dream of Madame Forsyth and Robin and Jeanne d'Arc sitting in a
social club at the House of Laughter.