Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life Part 20

Once within, it took Mrs. Forbes a minute or two to get her breath, but she soon noticed that her companion's eyes were fixed upon a man seated a little way from them across the car. A smile kept coming to the child's lips, and at last the gentleman himself recognized that he was an object of interest. He looked at the strange little girl kindly. Her hand went unconsciously to the small gold pin she wore. The man smiled and touched one of similar pattern which was fastening his tie. In a minute more his street was reached, and as he pa.s.sed Jewel on his way out of the car, he stooped and gave her ready hand a little pressure.

She colored with pleasure, and Mrs. Forbes swelled with curiosity and disapproval. She knew the man by sight as a highly respectable citizen.

What was this wild Western child doing now? The car made too much noise to permit of investigation, so she waited until they had left it and entered the park gates.

"Julia," she said then, "where did you ever see that gentleman before?"

"I never did," replied the child.

"What do you mean by such bold actions, then? What will he think of you?"

"He'll think it's all right," returned Jewel. "We have the same--the same friends."

The housekeeper looked at her. It was beneath her dignity to ask further questions at present, but some time she meant to renew the subject.

"It's very wrong for a little girl to take any notice of strangers," she said.

"Yes'm," replied Jewel, "but he was--different."

Mrs. Forbes maintained silence henceforth until they reached home. "You may hang your hat and jacket in the closet under the stairs whenever you don't wish to go to your room," she said when she parted with her companion at the piazza, "but don't wander away anywhere before lunch."

"No'm. Thank you for taking me, Mrs. Forbes."

"You're welcome," returned that lady, and the long black veil swept majestically toward the barn.

Sweet and rippling music was proceeding from the house. Jewel tiptoed across the piazza to a long window, from whence she could see the interior of the drawing-room.

"It is the enchanted maiden," she said to herself, and sank down softly by the window, listening eagerly to the melodious strains and smooth runs which flowed from beneath the slender fingers. One piece followed another in quick succession, now gay, now grave, and the listener scarcely stirred in her enjoyment.

At last, suddenly, in the midst of a Grieg melody, the player ceased, and crossing her arms upon the empty music rack, bowed her head upon them in such an att.i.tude of abandon that Jewel's heart leaped in sympathy.

"Oh cousin Eloise! What makes her so sorry?" she thought. The child's intuition had been strong to perceive the nature of her aunt Madge. "It must be such an awful thing to have your own mother an error fairy. That must be the reason. I wish I could tell her"--Jewel jumped to her feet, but just as she was determining to go to her cousin, the soft-toned gong pealed its mellow summons, and she saw Eloise rise from the piano in time to meet her mother, who at that moment entered the room.

Jewel went into the house, hung up her hat and jacket, and deposited her packages. By the time she reached the dining-room her aunt and cousin were already seated. Mrs. Evringham put up her lorgnette as she greeted the child. Eloise nodded a grave good-morning, and Mrs. Forbes began to serve the luncheon.

Jewel looked in vain for any trace of excitement or tears on her cousin's lovely face. Eloise did not address her or any one. Mrs.

Evringham did the talking. After a question as to how Jewel had spent the morning, and without listening to the child's reply, she began to talk to her daughter of a drive she wished to take that afternoon.

Jewel discerned that Mrs. Forbes was not kindly disposed toward the mother and daughter, and that they ignored the housekeeper; that Eloise was languid and out of sympathy with her mother, and that Mrs. Evringham was impatient with her, often to the verge of sharpness. The child was glad when luncheon was over; but before going upstairs she brought her small bag of caramels and offered them to the ladies.

Mrs. Evringham gave a little laugh of surprise and looked at Eloise, who took one with a sober "Thank you."

"I don't believe I could, child," said aunt Madge, glancing with amus.e.m.e.nt at the striped bag. "Keep them for yourself."

"You'll have some, won't you, Mrs. Forbes?" asked Jewel, and the housekeeper so strongly disapproved of Mrs. Evringham's manner that she accepted.

"Perhaps you would like to try some of our candy, Julia," said Mrs.

Evringham, as the child followed her aunt and cousin upstairs.

Jewel paused while aunt Madge brought from her room into the hall a large box, beribboned and laced, full of a variety of confections.

"How pretty!" exclaimed the child.

"This is from your friend, Dr. Ballard," said her aunt. "He sent it to the charming little girl, Eloise."

Jewel, running on up to her room eating the creamy chocolate, wondered still more why her cousin should seem so sorry, with so much to make her happy.

"Now, Anna Belle, the time has really come," she said happily to her doll, as she took her in her arms and began putting on her jacket and hat. "We're going away from Castle Discord to seek our fortunes. We're going to leave the giantess, and leave the impolite error fairy, and leave the poor enchanted maiden, and go to find the ravine and the brook. Wait till I put on my oldest shoes, for we shall have to climb deep, deep down to get near to father."

At last she was ready, and when she had closed the heavy house door behind her, and had run down the driveway to the park road, a delicious sense of freedom possessed her.

"There goes the little Westerner," observed Mrs. Evringham, looking from her window. "It's a good thing she knows how to amuse herself."

"A good thing, indeed," returned Eloise. "There is no one here to do anything for her."

"She has wonderful a.s.surance for such a plain little monkey," went on Mrs. Evringham.

"She has extremely good breeding," returned her daughter, coming to the window and following Jewel's retreating figure with her eyes, "and a charming face when she smiles."

"Very well. Look out for yourself, then. I thought last night, once or twice, at dinner, that she was rather entertaining to her grandfather."

"She has her doll," said Eloise wistfully. "Where can she be going? I wish I were going with her."

Mrs. Evringham laughed. "Well, you _are_ bored. Pshaw, my dear! Lie down and get a little beauty sleep. Then we will go driving and see that charming spot Dr. Ballard told us about. I'm sure he will call to-night."

CHAPTER X

THE RAVINE

Outside the well-kept roads of Bel-Air Park, Nature had been encouraged to work her sweet will. The drive wound along the edge of a picturesque gorge, and it was not long before Jewel found the scene of her father's favorite stories.

The sides of the ravine were studded with tall trees, and in its depths flowed a brook, unusually full now from the spring rains.

The child lost no time in creeping beneath the slender wire fence at the roadside, and scrambling down the incline. The brook whispered and gurgled, wild flowers sprang amid the ferns in the shelter and moisture.

The child was enraptured.

"Oh, Anna Belle!" She exclaimed, hugging the doll for pure joy. "Castle Discord is far away. There's n.o.body down here but G.o.d!"

For hours she played happily in the enchanting spot, all unconscious of time. Anna Belle lay on a bed of moss, while Jewel became acquainted with her wonderful new playmate, the brook. The only body of water with which she had been familiar hitherto was Lake Michigan. Now she drew stones out of the bank and made dams and waterfalls. She sailed boats of chips and watched them shoot the tiny rapids. She lay down on the bank beside Anna Belle and gazed up through the leafy treetops. Many times this programme had been varied, when at last equipages began to pa.s.s on the road above. She could see twinkling wheels and smart liveries.

With a start of recollection, she considered that she might have been a long time in the ravine.

"I wish somebody would let me bring a watch the next time," she said to her doll, as she took her up. "Haven't we had a beautiful afternoon, Anna Belle? Let's call it the Ravine of Happiness, and we'll come here every day--just every day; but perhaps it's time for grandpa to be home, dearie, so we must go back to the castle." She sighed unconsciously as she began climbing up the steep bank and crept under the wire. "I hope we haven't stayed very long, because the giantess might not like it,"

she continued uneasily; but as she set her feet in the homeward road, every sensation of anxiety fled before an approaching vision. She saw a handsome man in riding dress mounted on a shining horse with arched neck, that lifted its feet daintily as it pranced along the tree-lined avenue.

"Grandpa!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jewel, stepping to the roadside and pausing, her hands clasped beneath her chin and her eyes shining with admiration.

Mr. Evringham drew rein, not displeased by the encounter. The child apparently could not speak. She eyed the horse rather than its rider, a fact which the latter observed and enjoyed.