Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life Part 17

"Yes," replied the child with docility. She poured the cream from a small silver pitcher with a neatness that won Mrs. Forbes's approval; and Mr. Evringham read over headlines in the paper, while he sipped his coffee, without understanding in the least the meaning of the words.

Mrs. Forbes was right. Discipline must be maintained. This was the time during which he wished to read his paper, and it was most astonishing to be so vigorously taken possession of by an utter stranger. Now was the time to repress her if she were to be repressed. Mrs. Forbes was right.

After a while he glanced across at the child. She looked very small and clean, and she was ready with a quick smile for him; but she put a little forefinger against her lips jocosely. He cleared his throat again and averted his eyes, rumpling the paper as he turned a leaf.

Mrs. Forbes left the room with the oatmeal dishes.

Jewel leaned forward quickly. "Grandpa," she said earnestly, "if you would declare every day, over and over, that no error could come near your house, I think she would go away of her own accord."

Mr. Evringham stared, open paper in hand. "What? Who?"

"Mrs. Forbes."

"Go away? Mrs. Forbes? What are you thinking of! I couldn't get on without Mrs. Forbes."

"Oh!" Jewel leaned back with the long-drawn exclamation. "I thought she was what made you look sorry."

"No indeed. I have enough things to make me sorry, but she isn't one of them."

"Do you like her?" wonderingly.

"I--why--I respect her profoundly."

"Oh! It must be lots easier to respect her pro--the way you do, than to like her; but," with firm lips, "I've got to love her. I told Anna Belle so this morning, and especially if you want her to stay."

"Bless my soul!" Mr. Evringham looked in dismay as his _vis-a-vis_. "You must be very careful, Julia, not to offend or trouble her in any way,"

he said.

"All right, grandpa, I will, and then will you do me a favor too?"

"I must hear it first."

"Would you mind calling me Jewel? You know it isn't any matter about the rest, because they're not my real relations, but Julia is mother's name, and Jewel is mine; and when I love people very much, I like them to call me Jewel."

Mrs. Forbes here entered with a tray, and Mr. Evringham merely said, "Very well," twice over, and retreated into his newspaper.

On the tray were boiled eggs. Jewel glanced quickly up at Mrs. Forbes's impa.s.sive face. She might have remembered. Probably she did remember.

Life had not taught the child to be shy, as has been evidenced; so although Mrs. Forbes was an awing experience, she felt strong in the presence of her important grandfather, and only kept silence now in order not to interrupt his reading.

When at last he laid down his paper and began to chip an egg, Jewel glanced at those which Mrs. Forbes had set before her. Her little face had grown very serious.

"Grandpa, do you think it's error for me not to like eggs?" she asked.

"Mother never said it was. She was willing I should eat something else."

"Of course, eat whatever you like," responded Mr. Evringham quickly.

Mrs. Forbes seemed to swell and grow pink. "You always have eggs, sir, and if there's two breakfasts to be got, will you kindly tell me what the other shall be?"

Mr. Evringham glanced up in some surprise at the unfamiliar tone.

"Oh, the oatmeal is a plenty," said Jewel, looking at the housekeeper, eager to mollify her.

"Try an egg. Perhaps you'll like them by this time," suggested Mr.

Evringham.

"Do you like everything to eat, grandpa?"

Mr. Evringham, being most arbitrary and peculiar in his tastes, could only gain time by clearing his throat again, and taking a drink of coffee.

"Mrs. Forbes will bring you a gla.s.s of milk, I dare say," he returned at last, without looking up; and the housekeeper turned with ponderous obedience and left the room.

Nimbly Jewel slid down from her chair, and running around the table to her grandfather's place, put both her arms around his neck and whispered to him eagerly and swiftly, "If you have such a pro--something respect for Mrs. Forbes, and it makes her sorry because I won't eat eggs, perhaps I ought to. If it offends thy brother to have you eat meat, you mustn't, the Bible says, so I suppose, if it makes Mrs. Forbes turn red and perhaps get the stomach ache to have me not eat eggs, I ought to; but grandpa, if you decide I must, please let me wait till to-morrow morning, so I can say the Scientific Statement of Being all day--"

Here Mrs. Forbes entered with a gla.s.s of milk on a little tray. She stood transfixed at the sight that met her.

"That child hasn't the fear of man before her eyes!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed mentally, then she marched forward and deposited the milk beside Jewel's empty plate, while the child ran back and took her seat.

Mr. Evringham, gazing at his visitor in mute astonishment, was much disconcerted to receive a confiding gesture of raised shoulders and eyebrows, which, combined with a little smile, plainly signified that they had been caught. He took up his newspaper mechanically.

He had never had a daughter, and caresses had seldom pa.s.sed between him and his children. His duties as a family man had always been perfunctory. He was tingling now from the surprise of Jewel's action, the feeling of the little gingham clad arms about his neck, the touch of the rose-leaf skin as she swept his cheek and ear in her emphatic half-whisper.

His mental processes were stiff when the subject related to things apart from the stock market, his horses, and golf, but he was finally understanding that his granddaughter had come to Bel-Air, prepared by accounts which had cast a glamour over everything and everybody in it.

She had evidently found Mrs. Forbes fall below her expectations. He had been disillusioned concerning Mrs. Evringham and Eloise. As yet the halo with which he himself had been invested was intact. Was it to remain so? He still saw how foolish he had been to send for the child. He still wished, of course, that she was in Chicago now, instead of sitting across there from him in crisp short skirts, her head and shoulders only showing above the high table, and a little smile of good understanding waiting for him each time he looked up.

He had done very well during a lifetime without being hugged, yet the innocent incense, which had been rising spontaneously before him ever since the child entered the dining-room, had a strangely sweet savor.

Such was the joy of breakfast alone with him that it made her feel as if she had a birthday! Perfectly absurd! Quite the most absurd thing that he had ever heard in his life.

Mrs. Forbes spoke. "Perhaps it is to be the same way about the rubbers, Mr. Evringham!" she said, much flushed. "Perhaps you will not insist upon Julia wearing rubbers!"

"Oh yes, yes, certainly," returned Mr. Evringham hastily, anxious to reinstate himself. "I wish you to have a pair of rubbers at once, Julia--Jewel. You surely don't mean that your mother has allowed you to wet your feet."

"I--I never noticed, grandpa, but," hopefully, "she lets me wet my hands, so why not my feet?"

"Bless me, what ignorance! Because the soles of your feet have large pores through which to catch cold. Hasn't any one ever told you that?"

Jewel smiled. "That would be a queer arrangement for G.o.d to make, don't you think?" she asked softly. "Just as if He expected us to walk on our hands."

Mrs. Forbes's eyes widened, and an irrepressible "Well!" escaped from her lips. "Has that young one reverence for anything in heaven above or earth beneath?" she queried mentally.

Mr. Evringham managed to recover himself sufficiently to say, "You shouldn't speak so, Jewel."

"But you know how it was about the tree of knowledge, grandpa," replied the child earnestly. "G.o.d told Adam not to eat of it, because then he'd believe in good _and_ evil, and that always makes such lots and _lots_ of trouble. The Indians don't have to wear rubbers."

"Drink your milk, Jewel," returned Mr. Evringham uncomfortably, not having the temerity to lift his eyes as high as his housekeeper's countenance. "No matter about the Indians. You are a civilized little girl, and you must wear rubbers while you live with me. Mrs. Forbes will very kindly buy them for you."

"Oh, I have money," returned Jewel brightly. "I have three dollars,"

she added, trying not to say it boastfully. "Fifty cents for every week father and mother are going to be away."

Mr. Evringham wiped his mustache. "You need not spend any of it for the rubbers," he returned. "You are buying those to please me."