THE GREEN BEADS
Beryl waved Robin off to the Granger's with a forced cheerfulness. Left
alone, she sat in the room she shared with Robin and stared unhappily at
the disarray left from the frenzied packing and unpacking.
Nothing exciting like going off to a house-party of young people with
two bags full of lovely clothes would ever, _ever_ happen to her!
In fact _nothing_ exciting would ever happen. She'd just go on and on
wanting things all her life.
She did not envy Robin, for Robin was such a dear no one could ever envy
her, but she wished she could have just _some_ of the chances Robin
had--and did not appreciate. She straightened. Oh, with just one of
Robin's dresses, couldn't she sail into that drawing room at Wyckham and
hold her own with the proudest of them? Mrs. Granger and the haughty
Alicia had no terrors for _her_, and if they tried to snub her, she'd
put her violin under her chin and then--
The peal of the doorbell reverberated through the quiet house. Beryl
heard Harkness' slow step, as he went to the door; then it climbed the
stairs and stopped outside of Robin's room.
"Miss Beryl--a telegram."
"For me?" Beryl drew back. She had never received a telegram in her life
and the yellow envelope frightened her.
"The boy said as to sign here."
Beryl wrote her name mechanically in letters that zigzagged crazily.
Harkness lingered while she tore open the envelope, concern struggling
with curiosity on his face.
"It's from Robin's guardian. He--he wants--oh, Harkness, am I reading
_right_? He says I must come to New York at _once_--tonight, if I can.
He'll meet me--it's _extremely_ important. Why, Harkness, what in the
world has happened? It doesn't sound awful, does it? Did you ever know
of anything so mysterious in your life?"
Harkness never had. He read the telegram with brows drawn together.
"Mebbe they left out something," he suggested, turning the sheet and
scrutinizing its back.
"Well, I'll _have_ to go." Beryl's voice betrayed her deep excitement.
"I _can_ catch the evening train. Oh, Harkness, how often I've watched
that go out and wished I was on it! And now I'm going to be. I'm going
to New York! Harkness, be a _dear_ and hurry some dinner, will you? I'll
pack. And oh, will you take a note to mother for me? I'll not have time
to stop. Or wait--I won't tell her I'm going until I know what it's
for--she'd worry. Isn't that best?"
"Yes, that's best. I'll get you some nice dinner, don't you fret. And
Joe'll take you down to the station in the truck, he will, for like as
not he'll be meetin' the train anyways for his wife's niece who lives
Boston way. She's a-goin' to help Joe's wife--"
"Oh, that'll be _nice_. But please hurry, Harkness. That boy's waiting
for his book. And I can't think."
Two hours later Beryl sat upright on the plush seat of the evening
train, her old suitcase at her feet packed with every garment she
possessed.
"This is more fun than all your old house-parties," she apostrophized
the black square of window, which dimly reflected her glowing face. Then
she lost herself in a delicious "I wonder" as to why she had been
summoned so mysteriously to New York.
Cornelius Allendyce and Miss Effie met her at the end of her wonderful
journey, no part of which had wearied her in the least, and their
smiling faces put at rest the tiny misgiving that had persisted that she
might be walking into some sort of a scheme to separate her from Robin.
"I am glad you got my telegram in time to catch tonight's train. I've
made an important appointment for you tomorrow morning with a friend of
mine." But not another word concerning the mystery would the lawyer say.
Both he and his sister went about with a queer smile, and treated Beryl
as fond (and rich) parents might a good child on Christmas Eve.
The next morning Miss Effie started the two of them off for the
"appointment" with a fluttery excitement bordering on hysteria.
"You'll think, my dear, you've rubbed Aladdin's lamp," she whispered to
Beryl, patting down the neat white collar of Beryl's coat.
Beryl thought of her words when she followed Mr. Allendyce through a
long dim room, crowded with treasures of fabric and ceramic, rich in
coloring, fragrant of oriental perfumes.
"He's a collector," Cornelius Allendyce explained, nodding sideways and
hurrying on to a room in the back, as though their errand had nothing to
do with the curious things about them.
"Ah, there, Eugene, we're here! Miss Lynch, this is Eugene Dominez,
known to two continents as that rare specimen, an honest collector; to
me, the only man I can't beat at chess!"
A very small man rose from a great carved chair. He had a thin, leathery
face with an exaggerated nose, stretched out as though from sniffing for
curios in dusty dim corners. When he smiled his eyes shut and his mouth
twisted until he looked like a jolly little gnome.
"Ah-ha! You admit you cannot beat me!" He spoke with a soft accent. "And
this is the little lady who owns the green beads." And he peered closely
at Beryl.
The green beads! She had not thought of them once.
"Sit down. Sit down. I will ask you to tell me a story. Then I will tell
_you_ a story. First, my dear young lady, tell me where you found the
beads?" As he spoke, he drew open a drawer, and took from it the
envelope Robin had given to her guardian.
Beryl answered briefly, for the simple reason that she found difficulty
managing her tongue.
"An--an old priest--back in Ireland--gave them--to us. He'd found them
in an antique shop in London."
"Ah, so! Just so! So! So!" crowed the gnome-like man, jumping up and
down in his great chair. "Now I will tell _you_ a story."
"Once upon a time, as you say, a beautiful Queen of the fifteenth
century, while travelling through a forest, came upon a roving band of
gypsies. So great was her beauty that the gypsy chief gave to her a
necklace of precious jade, upon each bead of which had been tooled a
crown, so infinitesimal as to be seen only through a strong lens. The
chief told the fair Queen that the necklace brought good fortune to
whosoever possessed it. But so proud was the young Queen of the precious
beads and the good fortune that was to be hers that she boasted of them
to her Court and aroused the envy of many until a knave among her
courtiers stole them from her. For generations these beads, the
workmanship of a Magyar artisan, have passed from owner to owner,
always mysteriously, for, because of the good fortune they had power to
bestow, no one parted with them except from the most dire necessity, and
only lost them through theft. Ah," he held up one of the glowing green
globes, "the stories they could tell of greed and dishonor and cunning!
The lies that have been told for them! And an old priest found them at
last! It is many years since there has been any trace." He stared at
Beryl as though to see through her into the past. Then he roused quickly
and shook his shoulders. "They have hung about the necks of crowned
people, good people--and wicked people. Perhaps they have brought good
fortune--as the Magyar chieftain said they would. Who knows? You, my
dear--you are a girl with a sensible head on a pair of straight
shoulders--tell me, do you care more for the superstition of this
necklace--than for the money I will pay you for it--say, fifteen
thousand dollars?"
Beryl stood up so suddenly that her chair tumbled backward, making a
crashing noise in the subdued stillness of the little room.
"Are you joking?" she asked in a queer, choky voice.
"No, he is not joking. And I told you he is known the world over as an
honest collector," broke in Cornelius Allendyce.
"Fifteen--thousand--dollars! Why, that's an _awfully_ big amount, isn't
it?" Beryl appealed helplessly to the lawyer. "Why--of _course_ I'll
sell it--if you're sure it's what you think it is. I--I don't want--"
The little collector handed her one of the beads and a strong magnifying
glass. "Look!" he commanded. Beryl obeyed. There, quite plainly, she
made out a tiny crown.
She laughed hysterically. "I see it! I thought that was a scratch. I
never noticed it was on every one. Oh, how queer! A queen wore these!"
She rolled the bead slowly in the palm of her hand. Then she handed it
back. "But I'd much rather have the money than the beads even if a dozen
queens wore them." Her sound practicalness rang harshly in the exotic
atmosphere of the room.
"I explained to Mr. Dominez your situation--and your ambition,"
Cornelius Allendyce put in almost apologetically.
"Mr. Allendyce will represent you in this deal, Miss Lynch, if you care
to think the sale over. However, I am giving you a final offer. You are
young and--"
Beryl reached out both hands with childish impulsiveness. "Oh, I want
the money _now!_ I want to spend it. I want--oh, you don't _know_ all I
want--" She stopped abruptly, confused by the smiles on both men's
faces.
"Mr. Dominez will give you a partial payment in cash and the rest I will
deposit in the bank to your credit," explained Cornelius Allendyce.
"You need not feel ashamed of your excitement, my dear; fortune like
this does not come often to anyone. It's hard, indeed, not to believe
that the little beads _have_ magic."
"I'm dreaming. I'm just _plain dreaming_ and I'll wake up in a minute
and find I'm Beryl Lynch, poor as ever!" Beryl whispered to herself as
she followed Robin's guardian out into the sunshine of the street. She
felt of her bulging pocketbook, into which she had put the roll of bills
the little collector had smilingly given her, and which Robin's guardian
had counted over, quite seriously. It felt real but it just _couldn't_
be true--
"Now where, my dear? You ought to make this day one you'll never
forget."
"Don't I have to go right back to Wassumsic? Oh, then--then--can I go to
see Jacques Henri and tell him? I know the way--I can take the Ninth
Avenue Elevated--or--Would it be _very_ foolish if I took a taxi?" Beryl
colored furiously.
"Not at all, Miss Beryl, not at all. Take the taxi and keep it there to
return to my house; then you and Miss Effie put your heads together and
decide just what you want to do first with your money."
Beryl rejoiced that it was a nice shiny taxi, quite like a real lady's
car. She sniffed delightedly the leathery smell, sat bolt upright with
her chin in the air.
"Go straight down Fifth Avenue," she instructed the driver.
Spring, with its eternal sorcery, caressed the great city. Its spell
threw a sheen over the drab things Beryl remembered so well, the brick
schoolhouse, the Settlement, the dirty narrow street flanked by
dull-brown tenements with their endless fire escapes mounting higher and
higher, hung now with bedding of every color. The street swarmed with
children returning from school, and they gathered about the automobile
climbing on to the running board on either side and peering through the
windows.
"It's the Lynch girl," someone cried and another answered jeeringly.
"Aw, git off! Wot she doin' in this swell autymobile?"
Beryl did not mind in the least the street urchins; even though she had
lived among them, neither she nor Dale had ever been of them, thanks to
her mother's watchful care. She smiled at them and fled into the dark
alley way that led to the court which, all through her childhood, had
been her playground.
As she climbed, a dreadful thought appalled her. What if dear old
Jacques Henri had moved away--or died! But, no, at the very moment she
let the fear halt her climbing step she heard the dear sound of his
violin. She crept to his door and softly opened it.
The old man stood near his window, through which he could see a slit of
blue sky between two walls. On the sill were the pink geraniums he
nursed through winter and summer, their pinkness brightening the gloom
of the bare, dim room. Jacques Henri called them his family.
"Jacques Henri!" Beryl ran to him and threw her strong arms about him.
"Hold! Let me look. My girl? Ah, do my old eyes tell me false things?
No, it's my little Beryl!"
Beryl took his violin from him, kissed its strings lightly and laid it
carefully upon the table. Then she pushed the startled old man back into
the one comfortable chair and perched herself upon its arm.
"Listen, dear Jacques Henri, and I'll tell you the strangest story that
you ever heard--about Queens and gypsies and green beads and a girl you
know. Don't say _one_ word until I'm through." And Beryl told in all its
wonderful detail, the happenings of the morning.
"And don't you see what it means? I can begin to study at _once_! Right
this minute! And, _oh_, how I'll work and practice and learn until--"
She caught up the old man's violin and its bow and drew it across the
strings.
"Play!" commanded Jacques Henri, without so much as a word for the
Aladdin-lamp tale she had told him.
Beryl played and as she played she wished with all her might she could
summon the power that had been hers on Christmas night. She wanted to
play for Jacques Henri as she had played then. But she could not.
"Stop!"
Beryl laid the violin down.
The old man scowled at her until she shifted nervously under his
searching eyes.
"Your fingers--they are clever, your ear is true--but there is
nothing--of _you_--in what you play! Do you know what I mean?"
He did not wait for Beryl to answer; he went on, with a shake of his
great head and his eyes still fixed upon her.
"You come to me and tell me your good fortune and what you will do; how
_you_ can study and _you_ can work and _you_ can learn to make good
music--and you have no word for what that money will mean to your saint
of a mother--aye, the best woman God ever made! Shame to you, selfish
girl, that you should put your ambition before her dreams!"
The color dyed Beryl's face. "I never thought--" she muttered, then
stopped abruptly, ashamed of her own admission.
"No, you never thought! Do you ever think much beyond yourself?" Then,
afraid that he had spoken too harshly, he laid his hand affectionately
upon Beryl's shoulder. "But you are young, my dear, and youth is
careless. Jacques Henri knows that there is good in you--my eyes are
wise and I can see into your heart. It is an honest little heart--you
will heed in time. Ambition is a greedy thing--watch out that you keep
it in your clever head and do not let it wrap its hard sinews about your
heart, crushing all that is beautiful there. Listen to me, child; think
you that your music can reach into the souls of people if you do not
feel that music in your own good soul? Your fingers may be clever and
your body strong, but your music will be cold, cold, if the heart inside
you is a little, cold, mean thing! Many's the one, I grant you, content
to feed the passing plaudits of the crowd, but not the master--he must
go further, he must give of himself to all that they may carry something
beautiful of his gift away in their hearts. _That_ is the master. _That_
is music."
Beryl, always so ready in self-defense, stood mute before the old man's
charge. She had been scolded too often by this dear recluse to resent
it; she had, too, faith in anything he might say.
Then: "You just ought to know Robin," she burst out, irrelevantly, eager
that her old teacher should believe that, even though she might be a
selfish, thoughtless girl herself, she could recognize and respect the
good qualities in others.
"Forgive your old friend if he has hurt you. Go now to your blessed
mother and lay your good fortune at her feet. That I might see her
face!"
"And if she wants to use--_some_ of the money, will you help me?" asked
Beryl, in a meek voice.
"Ah, most surely. And proudly."
Beryl rode back to Miss Erne's in a contritely humble mood.
"I wish there were some sort of medicine one could take to make them
better inside their hearts! I wouldn't care _how_ nasty it tasted," she
mourned, impatient at the long, hard climb that must be hers if she ever
made of herself what her Jacques Henri wanted.
All of Miss Effie's coaxing could not keep Beryl from taking the
afternoon train to Wassumsic.
"I must tell my mother about the beads--at once!" she answered, firmly.