Little Miss By-The-Day Part 20

For a long time the weeping was sustained and dreary. It never ceased save when Mrs. Seeley came back to give Felicia instructions about her work, but usually after her footfalls had clattered down the stairway the crying would begin again, very softly. Frequently Felicia could hear the pad, pad, pad of stockinged feet. She knew that whenever the crying stopped the grieving one walked to and fro restlessly. After a longer interval of silence than usual Felicia became aware that Babiche was sniffing excitably. The nervous sniff that had always characterized the wee doggies on days when the carbolic water was ready for the rinsing.

Felicia wrinkled her own nose tentatively. Presently she got up and opened the door to the next room. It was empty. But adjoining it was an untidy bathroom with a dark wainscoting and a grimy enameled tub and standing over near the uncurtained window was a boyish figure, wrapped in a man's overcoat, with a bottle in her hand. She had wept so long, poor girl, that Felicia couldn't tell very much about how she really looked, except that it seemed to her she had never seen any one so unhappy.

Felicia stood there, an absurdly dowdy figure, Babiche clasped in her arm, and smiled timorously.

"Where is your dog?" she asked sweetly.

"What dog?" demanded a sulky voice.

"The dog you were going to wash--" Felicia's voice was casual. "With the 'scarbolic.'"

"I wasn't--trying to wash any dog--" the girl breathed dully.

Felicia moved quickly, she took the bottle from the girl's hand. "Then I wish you'd lend me your--'scarbolic,'" she entreated sweetly, "Babiche really needs a bath."

The youthful sufferer stared from her tear-stained eyes, stared with all her might at the shabby, frumpy, middle-aged looking little person who had taken the bottle from her hand.

"I can't stand it--" she sobbed bitterly, "I've got to quit--you don't know how I feel--I feel as if--"

"When you feel that way," interrupted Felicia quietly, "you mustn't have a 'scarbolic' bottle, that's a thing that will make you go dead--"

"It's my own business if I do--I'd rather be dead than the way I am--"

she stretched out her arms pa.s.sionately, "I haven't room to breathe! I did have that top floor front you know, it was a peach of a place to work. But she rented it to a chauffeur and put me in this hole--oh, oh, when all I asked was room for my model stand and room for my clay --when all I wanted was room for Pandora--you can't know how I feel--"

"But I do know how you feel!" slender hands cupped the girl's face.

Felicia's eyes looked through into the girl's soul. "You feel like 'I can't get out, I can't get out, sang the starling'! Once I did.

Perhaps every one of us comes to a time when she feels all shut in--I went out into my garden when I felt that way. It is a big garden but it felt smaller than this room. I cried in it all night long, walking up and down and up and down--quite sure I didn't want to live any more. But when it was getting to be morning I saw a rosebush by the wall. In a jar. I'd forgotten to take care of it and Bele--he is good, you know, but stupid--had been tending it. Poor Rosebush!

"It was much too big for its jar. Its roots were all cramped and its top all cut back so it couldn't bloom--you mustn't prune some roses too much, you know--I've just been thinking, that you're rather like my rosebush. You're Dulcie, aren't you? I think I know exactly what you need. If you'd just come along with me--I've a big room--I mean I will have as soon as I get the abundance-of-weeds-for-which-we-have- no-name out--I'd just love you to come with me. You'd be proud, proud, proud if you did--

"Listen, that's Mrs. Seeley coming back up the stairs. She's bringing me my two dollars. You put on your shoes and when she's down the stairs I'll whistle--so--vairee softly. And then you will come out and down we'll go. It will really be a great favor if you will--it's a big house, my house and I'm ra-_ther_ lonely--"

It wasn't until they were outside in the shadowy, rain-sweet street that Dulcie realized she had been coaxed that far. She drew back.

"I've no hat," she whimpered, "It's no use--I don't want to go--"

"You would," the seamstress insisted, "if you only knew what fun it's going to be. And we'll stop in the Exchange and buy you a cap. It's a darling cap. I've wanted it evaire since I saw it, it's velvet, rather like a choir boy's, only it has a ta.s.sel." Her arm was through Dulcie's, they were really walking along. "And we shall buy our supper there too. Miss Susan has fat jars of baked beans and little round corn m.u.f.fins and I think she has quince jelly--"

She actually managed to get her hysterical guest as far as the shop without further parley. The girl took the cap and the parcels that Felicia handed her, turning her head away when she fancied Miss Susan was eyeing her sharply. They walked around the corner and into the gateway of that unspeakably dirty house. The girl drew back in dismay.

"Oh, it's altogether too dreadful--" she exclaimed. "It's worse than Aunt Seeley's--I can't go in--"

But she did go in and up the stairs too, protesting weakly all the way. She was plainly exhausted from her emotions, and clung to Felicia's arm. And when they were safe in Mademoiselle's room she looked about her wildly. "It's an awful place--" she moaned.

"It's going to be lovely," promised Felicia stoutly, "It used to be lovely. Look here," she drew the girl to the window and pointed out across the gleaming river, "that's what you'll see every night from your windows. You won't be in this little room, you'll be in the big room next, the room that used to be my nursery."

She wheedled the tired girl into eating a bit. She coaxed her to lie on the bed and watch the stars. She did not talk any more, just listened to sobbing breaths that the girl drew--listened as she sat in the wicker chair with Babiche cuddled in her arms. And presently the girl slept. And Felicia sighed and slept too.

Morning was droll and difficult. An enormous b.u.mping and thumping awakened the sleepers. Cramped and dazed from her uncomfortable night in the chair Felicia jumped up startled; drowsy and bewildered in her unaccustomed bed, Dulcie sat up and stared at her.

"Whatever is it?" Dulcie stammered.

Felicia clapped her hands.

"It's the weeds--this is going to be a wonderful, wonderful day, Dulcie, you're going to be so glad--just think! The tailor and the tailor's missus and all of them are going--"

They were not only going, they had already started. All day long the old house groaned under their leave-taking. All day long Felicia chattered to Dulcie of her plans of how they should find where the old furniture had gone and bring it back; of how they should make the whole house lovely.

Dulcie was shy and silent most of the time, her eyes were still red, she was still numb from her nerve-racking day before, still shamed by the fact that this queer little creature had given her her bed and slept in a chair beside her. Late afternoon found the two of them standing in the empty room that had been the nursery. They had been laughing a little over the absurdity of their situation; the tailor's missus had removed the bed and chair from Mademoiselle's room, and they were furnitureless. But Dulcie was waking up mentally after her day of stupor. "Impractical" as her aunt had proclaimed her, she proved the contrary very quickly.

"Steamer chairs," she decided instantly, "I left two steamer chairs and some rugs over on Ella Sloc.u.m's back porch--I'll bet we could get a grocery boy to bring them over for us--"

"Only what good will it do?" she tramped about the great room restlessly, "It's no use, Miss Day, you might better have let me quit --you've got troubles enough without bothering with me--"

"Isn't there room enough?" asked Felicia shyly. "Isn't it big enough?"

"It's big enough for the model stand--" she admitted moodily. "It's a good light. I could paint these silly papered walls--" Felicia sighed.

Dear old shepherds and shepherdesses! It was not the gathering twilight alone that let them mist away as she looked.

"Are they so silly?" she asked. "I didn't know." But the girl did not answer her.

"It's no use," that moody creature was muttering despondently.

"There's s.p.a.ce enough but it's no use. I don't seem to want to do it any more--I used to sit and dream about how I'd do it and how it would make other people dream just to look--it wasn't going to be any ordinary Pandora--it was to be a symbol--a symbol of what goes on in your heart when you're young--before you know about life--oh, I can't chitter-chatter about it--but I used to think I could make it--"

"Of course you can make it," Felicia insisted. "Not just now--" she led the girl to the window, "right now, the first thing you'll have to do is to help me in the garden. Doesn't it look ugly down there? It used to be lovely. Probably as soon as it's lovely again you will walk around in it and dream about your Pandora. I used to dream a lot of things in that garden. Some day, while I'm off sewing on my stupid sewing, you'll come dashing upstairs--and begin! Think what fun it will be when I get home that night! I'll call out, 'Where's my sculptor girl?' And you'll call out--'Here, I've begun!'" Felicia waved her hand into the gloom behind them as though Pandora were already mysteriously there. Perhaps she was!

At any rate that was the moment that Felicia won!

The Sculptor Girl laughed, a nervous little laugh, and dashed off to arrange for the steamer chairs. Presently she came back with them and found Felicia had kindled a fire in the Peggoty grate. It was delightfully cosy with two candles burning recklessly on the mantel- shelf and Felicia and Dulcie sitting by the embers of the little fire.

They'd had a supper of sandwiches and milk. Babiche was curled at their feet and they were planning excitably what they'd do with the house, when from the depths of the empty hall the old bell shrilled.

They'd bolted the doors an hour before when the last of the tailor's tribe had departed. It was the Sculptor Girl who mustered courage to go down.

"It's all right," she called up to Felicia, "it's Miss Sarah from the Exchange. There's a Mr. Alden with her--will you come down?"

He was a very apologetic Mr. Alden.

"I know it's after eight," he said, "but I've had a time finding you.

It's Uncle Peter. He's--well, Miss Grant and the doctor think he's pretty bad tonight. He's a notion he wants to play chess with you, he's been asking all day. I couldn't find you till now. Would you come along for an hour or two to pacify him?"

The Sculptor Girl decided for her.

"Babiche and I will wait up for you," she said. "We'll wait--"

It was as comfortable a motor as the Judge's. Little Miss Day let herself rest in its cushions. She felt rather lonely without Babiche, but she was glad she had had her to leave with the Sculptor Girl.

"Maybe the dear old duffer will be asleep when we get there and I can send you right back," Mr. Alden suggested hopefully. "He was so darned good to me when I was a kid that I can't let him miss anything I can get for him--Lord knows that's not much--I thought I could get you right away but I didn't have any name and I couldn't find out where you came from--my wife didn't have your address--"

They entered quietly and were up the stairway quickly. Outside the door he paused, "Just as soon as he is asleep," he whispered, "you come out and let me know--I'll be in the library downstairs with some chaps and I'll phone for the car to come around for you--you're awfully good to come--" he was a bit awkward.

"Uncle Peter" looked no more miserable than, he had the week before when she had met him, save that his eyes burned deeper. His voice was more petulant, he wasted no time in preliminaries, merely e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed a grateful,