CHAPTER XXXVII
ONE WAY OUT
Shakespeare speaks in one of his plays of the disastrous position of theman who is blown up with the bomb he has himself touched off. Jacquelinewas not nearly so well acquainted with Shakespeare as Caroline was. Butone half-second after she made her startling announcement, she needed nopoet to tell her how that poor man felt.
Aunt Martha stared for that one half-second, and then a look of actualtriumph came flooding into her tear-stained face.
"There, Judge!" she cried, with her arms tight about Jacqueline."Doesn't that prove what I kept telling you? It's the awful heat--andshe's worked so hard and faithful, poor young one--and that long walkyesterday in the sun--it's gone to her head. You can see for yourselfshe doesn't know what she does--or what she says."
Jacqueline stood speechless, ("flabbergasted," Grandma would have calledit!) while she looked from Aunt Martha's excited, anxious, yet beamingface, to the Judge who sat coldly, shrewdly watching. Crowding into herbrain came memories she had laid aside, passages and chapters in thelatter portion of that fateful volume, "The Prince and the Pauper."
"Oh, pluffy catamounts!" she almost shrieked in terror. "Don't you goacting like those silly boobs in that beastly old book--don't you gothinking I'm off my head, because I'm not--I'm not! I'm Jacqueline--andI never was anybody else! I'm Jacqueline Gildersleeve!"
She began to cry, tears of temper and terror combined. For this wasdrama, more than enough to satisfy her. If they didn't believe her--why,then they must think her either crazy or an awful liar and a thief! Whatdid they do with crazy people--and with thieves? The Judge had a courtand a jail--Neil had said so. And she had laughed, only a little whileago, at the mere idea of her being sent to jail, as Neil had said, totease her. It was no laughing matter now.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" choked Jacqueline. "I want my Aunt Edie--she'llknow I'm me. And my Uncle Jimmie! Oh, oh!"
Aunt Martha was herself again. Nothing apparently could down her, exceptthe dreadful fear that one of her children could be a thief and a liar.She drew Jacqueline down on her lap, and held her safe against herbreast, and Jacqueline, for all she was eleven next month and so big shenearly overwhelmed Aunt Martha, clung tight to her and wept into thehollow of her sunburnt neck.
"There, there, you poor child!" soothed Aunt Martha. "Cry all you wantto--cry it out!"
"I don't _want_ to!" sniffled Jacqueline, and lifted her smeary face."Lend me your hanky, Aunt Martha. Nellie's got mine."
She dried her eyes and felt a little better, but she didn't offer toleave Aunt Martha's lap, and she was thankful that Aunt Martha stillkept hold of her, for the Judge was right there in the big rocker, andhis steely eyes, under his drawn brows never wavered from her face.
"Well! Well!" said the Judge. "So you're Jacqueline, are you, and notCaroline Tait at all?"
"Now, Judge!" Aunt Martha begged. "Don't get her all upset again."
"But I'm _not_ sick," insisted Jacqueline, "and I won't get upset unlessyou go calling me crazy like they did in the book."
"What book?" the Judge questioned.
"The silly old 'Prince and the Pauper,'" Jacqueline explained. "JudgeBlair gave it to me to read on the train, but I never want to see itagain as long as I live, because it was the book that did it."
The Judge leaned back in his chair, and fitted his finger tips together.Over them he watched Jacqueline.
"Go ahead," he bade, "and tell us all about it."
"Well, Caroline got on the train at Chicago," Jacqueline told her storyin the intense silence, "and she was scared to death about going to thefarm, because of the boys and the cows, and no piano--and I didn't wantto go to Great-aunt Eunice's poky old house--and the two boys in thebook changed round--and Caroline and I were both going on eleven, andhad brown hair, and nobody in Longmeadow had ever seen either of us--andI thought it would be fun----"
Her voice began to falter, as she sensed the gravity of both herlisteners. What she and Caroline had done, she realized now, wasdangerous and dreadful. She dropped her eyes, thoroughly ashamed, butthough she could not keep the quaver out of her voice, she spoke thewords that it was only fair to speak.
"It was mostly me," she confessed. "Caroline wouldn't have done it, noteven for the piano, but I said she was a quitter, and we changed clothesand things, only she kept Mildred, and when she got off the train atBaring Junction, the Gildersleeves just grabbed her--and I went in theLizzie with Aunt Martha."
"Well, I--never!" gasped Aunt Martha. She was amazed, she was a littleangry, perhaps. But she wasn't crying the way she cried when Jacquelinesaid she had taken the beads. "Did you mean to keep it up all summer,Jackie?"
"No, Aunt Martha," Jacqueline admitted. "The day I broke the cups, youknow, when I went up to the village I was going to change back, butCaroline was having a party next day--they thought she was Jacqueline,you know--and she cried. She'd never had a party nor nothing. So I toldher we'd let things go till Aunt Edie came in September, and I wouldn'thave given the show away now, only I couldn't stand it, Aunt Martha, tohave you think--what you thought about me."
Deplorably Aunt Martha hugged Jacqueline at this point, instead ofshaking her, as really Jacqueline deserved to be shaken.
"There now, Judge!" Aunt Martha cried exultantly. "It's all true, thatpart about her running off to the village, the day the cups werebroken." The Judge shook his grizzled head, above his finger tips.
"That may be true, Martha, but you'll admit the rest of the story soundspretty queer."
"I don't care how queer and far-fetched it sounds," insisted AuntMartha. "I'd believe _any_ story before I'd believe this child isn'thonest. Why, Judge, whoever she is, she's been round here with me, goingon nine weeks now. I tell you, she _couldn't_ steal nor lie. 'Tisn't inher."
The Judge looked down a moment at his finger tips.
"Remember what day it was she got here, Martha?" he asked unexpectedly.
"Yes, Judge. The twenty-third of June. Her mother's cousin wrote me theday and train I was to expect her, and 'twas the same day I had a billto pay in Baring."
"Hm!" said the Judge. "Yes, that was the day that Mrs. Gildersleeve'slittle grandniece arrived from California. I remember because Mrs.Gildersleeve declined an invitation to dine with us that night--on mybirthday. She'd counted a lot on seeing that child. The two girls cameon the same train from Chicago, that much is sure. And you'd never seenthis little niece of yours?"
"Judge, I wouldn't have known her from a hole in the ground."
"Did you ever notice anything in her behavior different from what youwould naturally have expected in your brother's child? I know you wantto believe her story, Martha, but I trust you to be careful and exact."
"Yes, there _were_ some queer things, now I come to think of it," AuntMartha spoke eagerly, with her arms still round Jacqueline. "Why, Judge,this child didn't know the look of her own trunk, nor where to find hertrunk-key. I thought 'twas just because she was upset with the journey,but I see now how it came about. She had a pocketful of real expensivecandy--she said it was given her by a little girl on the train."
"I said a little girl on the train had a boxful," murmured Jacqueline."And the little girl was me!"
"And she hadn't one single idea about the value of money," Aunt Marthawent on joyfully. "I thought 'twas just because they'd brought her upfoolishly, but of course the Gildersleeves don't have to count theirpennies. Then she didn't know how to do one blessed thing about thehouse, but she took hold nicely, and she's been a real help to me allsummer. Why, Judge," Aunt Martha cried in sudden dismay, "if she'sJacqueline Gildersleeve, she'll be leaving us, and I don't know how I'llever get along without her."
Jacqueline hadn't thought of that, when she planned her merry trick,there on the train. She was going to hurt Aunt Martha--Aunt Martha, whobelieved in her and stood up for her to the Judge. She began to sniffle,not for temper this time, and buried her face in Aunt Martha's coarse,cl
ean handkerchief.
"I didn't think--'twould be like this," she sobbed.
"Well, well!" crooned the Judge. "It doesn't sound very probable, but Imust admit it's not impossible--no, not altogether impossible."
Jacqueline lifted her face from the pocket handkerchief.
"Caroline will tell you it's so, when she gets back from the beach," shehiccoughed, "and Aunt Edie and Uncle Jimmie, when they come inSeptember."
"Yes, of course," cried Aunt Martha eagerly.
"Hm!" boomed the Judge like a bee, but not a benevolent one. "But whatshall we do until they come? This little girl is in a pretty awkwardfix, because of these beads, if she can't prove to us that she'sJacqueline Gildersleeve."
"Send for the other child," bristled Aunt Martha, "the _real_ Caroline.Guess I've got some say in the matter, if she's my honest-to-goodnessniece."
The Judge shook his head.
"_This_ one is your niece," he said, with finality, "until there's proofto the contrary, and I won't send for the other child and have EuniceGildersleeve upset for what may be a cock-and-bull story. Let's see!" hemused. "Uncle Jimmie and Aunt Edie are our next hope. Where can we reachthese relatives of yours?" He turned to Jacqueline.
"I don't know where they are now," Jacqueline confessed mournfully. "Alltheir letters have gone to Caroline, of course, and they're moving aboutall the time, and changing their address."
"Well," said the Judge, "you must think up somebody else who canidentify you, and some way of making the identification by telegraph. Amere description isn't enough. There must be some distinguishingfeature. You haven't a strawberry mark on your left arm, have you?"
Jacqueline laughed hysterically, and at sight of what her parted lipsdisclosed, Aunt Martha gave a cry of triumph.
"Those braces, Judge," she cried. "The braces on her teeth! There justcouldn't be two children with the identical same dental work. In fact, Idon't believe my real niece has any such."
The Judge looked at Aunt Martha with genuine approval.
"You always did have a good head on your shoulders, Martha," he said."Dental work, eh? Come to think of it, I know myself that the littlegirl at The Chimnies has had no dentistry done in several years. I rodeinto Boston one day with Penelope, when she was taking the child to thedentist, and she commented quite sharply on the way in which her teethhad been neglected. So now if this little girl will give us the addressof her dentist----"
"It's Dr. Graydon on the tenth floor of the Wouverman Building in LosAngeles," Jacqueline answered readily. "Most all the girls I know go tohim."
The Judge wrote down the address methodically, in a little blacknote-book.
"I'll wire him at once," he said, more to Aunt Martha than toJacqueline. "I shall have to retain these beads, as a matter of form,until the child's story is proved or disproved. Meantime it will help tosettle this affair if she returns the five dollars she got from thelittle Trowbridge girl."
Oh, dear! Here were more storm clouds gathering, just as the sky seemedabout to clear!
"I can't return the money," Jacqueline faltered. "I--I spent it."
The Judge looked grave again, but his voice was patient, and Aunt Marthawas encouraging, so Jacqueline managed to give a full account of the actthat she now was so ashamed of--the taking of Caroline's precious oldbeads, and the pledging them with Miss Crevey.
When Jacqueline had finished Aunt Martha started eagerly to confirm herstory about bringing home a green-dragon cup, several weeks before, butthe Judge cut her short.
"Get the lacquer box and show us the beads," he bade.
Jacqueline slipped from Aunt Martha's lap to obey, and as she left theroom heard the Judge asking where the telephone was.
When Jacqueline came down with the box that held the beads, she foundthe Judge at the wall phone in the kitchen, and Aunt Martha by the tabletrying hard not to listen, but with her ears pricked up.
"Miss Crevey," her lips shaped the words for Jacqueline's comfort. Sheseemed to guess that Jacqueline might uneasily be thinking of the townconstable.
The Judge turned from the telephone at last, with a flicker of a smile.
"Well," he nodded to Aunt Martha, "Lucretia Crevey was a most unwillingwitness, but she did at last confirm as much of the child's story aspertains to her. And so these are the beads that made the trouble, eh?"He looked at the yellow coil that Jacqueline showed him in the lacquerbox which she uncovered. "It might have been very serious trouble foryou, little what's-your-name," he went on gravely. "You realize that,don't you?"
Jacqueline nodded, and drew a little nearer to Aunt Martha, who put herarm quickly round her.
"Other articles, besides the string of beads you call your own, aremissing from The Chimnies," the Judge went on, "and you, having takenthe beads and disposed of them to the child next door, were naturallysuspected of taking them all."
Jacqueline pressed closer to Aunt Martha's side. She hadn't breathenough now even to say "Oh!"
"It was by the merest chance," the Judge rubbed it in, "that it wasn'tthe town constable who came here after you, instead of me, but luckilysome ladies, who know Mrs. Conway here and wanted to spare her as muchtrouble as possible, heard about the beads, and put the case up to me.That's why I came to call this morning."
"I can't ever thank you enough, Judge," Aunt Martha said, with awavering sort of smile.
They followed the Judge out into the sunshine of the side-yard, wherethe children still were grouped under the shade of the trees whereJacqueline had left them such ages ago, as it seemed to her, when shethought of all that had happened since that moment.
"You understand, Martha," the Judge said, as he settled himself in hisroadster, "the little girl is still technically under suspicion. I'llsuspend judgment about this hocus-pocus, switched identity business,till I hear from that Los Angeles dentist. Meantime she's remanded toyour custody, and I'll trust you to produce her at my office, if sheshould be needed."
My, but that sounded as formal and dreadful as the clatter of prisonbolts! Jacqueline shivered, in spite of the heat, and she was glad whenshe saw the Judge's car disappear in the white, powdery dust of thehighway.
Then Jacqueline turned to Aunt Martha.
"Oh," she said and once more with weariness and excitement and remorse,she was half-crying. "I sure have got in awful wrong. I never thought,when I started things, there on the train! And now I've made you heapsand heaps of trouble, Aunt Martha--and you believed me--and stood up forme like all kinds of a brick--and you're not my Aunt Martha, either, andoh! I'm sorry that you aren't."
Aunt Martha put her arm round Jacqueline's shoulders.
"You're a naughty child, Jackie," she said tremulously, "to go and playsuch tricks on all of us--a very naughty child. Your folks will probablypunish you." She hugged Jacqueline close. "But _I_ don't have to,because you're not _my_ niece--but oh, dear me! don't I just wish youwere!"
The Turned-About Girls Page 38