The Turned-About Girls

by Beulah Marie Dix

  CHAPTER XLII

  PRIDE AND PENELOPE

  Aunt Edie and Uncle Jimmie and Jacqueline didn't leave The Chimniesquite at crack of dawn, but they did really sit down to breakfast atfive minutes after seven.

  Early as it was, Jacqueline had been up already for half an hour. Shehad dressed herself in a jumper of wood brown jersey, and a frilledblouse of white silk, with an orange colored tie. She had put some lastthings into her suitcase, which would go in Uncle Jimmie's car. Hertrunk, which Aunt Edie and Sallie had packed the night before, would goby express straight to the steamer.

  When her packing was done, she left her brown cape coat, with itsbuttons of pressed leather, and her little soft motor hat of brown,stitched with orange, lying on the bed with her precious vanity bag, andshe slipped down the back-stairs into the kitchen. She had been thereonce before, you'll remember.

  Hannah was mixing batter, and the waffle iron was steaming on the stove.

  "So you're the young one that really belongs here, are you?" boomedHannah. "Well, I never did, in all my born days!"

  She didn't say what it was she never did, and Jacqueline thought ittactful not to ask her. She meant to be very tactful, all the rest ofher life!

  Just then Sallie came out from the dining room, on her way to getchilled water and unsalted butter from the ice-chest. At sight ofJacqueline she began to giggle.

  "Say," cried Sallie, "if _you'd_ been here all summer, I guess thingswouldn't have gone fast, nor nothing."

  Jacqueline grinned in acknowledgment of the compliment, but rathersheepishly.

  "I want to give you back your dime," she said.

  "Oh, shucks!" cried Sallie, reddening.

  "Honest, I do," Jacqueline repeated earnestly. "I shouldn't have takenit, just for stepping up to the store to help you out, but I'll say Ineeded the money something awful."

  "I'll say you must have!" chuckled Sallie.

  "I'm keeping the twenty-five cents," Jacqueline went on. "My Aunt Ediesays she's going to frame it, 'cause it's the first money I ever earned,and Uncle Jimmie says probably it'll be the last. But the dime's in thisenvelope for you--and here's an envelope for Hannah--and I was ever somuch obliged for the milk."

  She fairly mumbled the last words, as she put the two creamy envelopes,marked Sallie and Hannah, on the table, and then she fled. In eachenvelope there was a dollar bill, besides the dime in Sallie's envelope.Jacqueline had found two dollars in the purse in her vanity bag. Allthat summer Caroline must have scrupulously left the money untouched.

  Breakfast at The Chimnies that morning was a rather hectic meal. CousinPenelope was very silent. Once her eyes traveled from Jacqueline to thepicture of Great-aunt Joanna that hung on the wall behind her.Great-aunt Joanna was the austere lady in the cap, you will remember,that Cousin Penelope had said Caroline looked like, when she believedthat Caroline was Jacqueline. Now when Cousin Penelope looked atGreat-aunt Joanna she positively choked over her soft roll, and had toleave the table.

  Aunt Eunice saw that every one had plenty of coffee and waffles andscrambled eggs and crisp bacon. But she scarcely ate at all herself. Asfor Aunt Edie, she was worried for fear she had mislaid her trunk-key,and for fear that Jacqueline had hopelessly upset everybody, and she wasmore fluttery and helpless than ever. But Uncle Jimmie was calm andgood-humored. He had said his say the night before. Now with himby-gones were by-gones, and he was friends all round, even with histroublesome niece-by-marriage.

  When the good-bys at last were hurriedly and briefly said, Jacquelinehopped down the steps of the porch, holding to Uncle Jimmie's hand, andscrambled up in front beside the driver's seat. Aunt Edie wasestablished in the tonneau, with rugs and cushions. She meant to sleepclear to New Haven, she said. Uncle Jimmie slipped his long legs underthe steering wheel beside Jacqueline and as he put the car in gear,grinned at her, in his old comradely fashion.

  It was a radiant little face, under the brown and orange hat, thatJacqueline showed to Aunt Eunice, as she waved farewell to The Chimniesand to Longmeadow, and it was with a little half-smile that Aunt Eunice,on the broad porch, turned to Cousin Penelope.

  "I'm glad she's gone off happy," said Aunt Eunice. "She's a brightlittle thing, and you must admit it was plucky of her to stick it out atthe farm, and let the other child have a happy summer here. Fine of her,too, with every one condemning, to take the whole blame on herself. Thatwas so like her father!"

  "I don't see it," Cousin Penelope spoke in a hard voice. "She's not onebit a Gildersleeve. She's a bold, forward, underbred child--Delane,every inch of her."

  Aunt Eunice didn't retort, as well she might have:

  "The Delanes, to judge by 'Aunt Edie,' are fair-haired and gray-eyed andsmall, while Jacqueline is brunette and big-boned, like all theGildersleeves."

  Old women are often wise women, so Aunt Eunice merely said:

  "She's a pretty child, and I'm sure we should have come to like her, butI'm glad," she added, with a little catch in her voice, "that shehappened to pick a dress that the other one had never worn here."

  Cousin Penelope shivered.

  "It's shockingly chilly on the porch," she spoke brusquely. "Let's gointo the house."

  They crossed the threshold, into the cool, dim hall.

  "How quiet the house is!" Aunt Eunice exclaimed.

  They looked at each other and quickly averted their eyes.

  There is a good deal for people to do, when they come home after weeksof absence. Aunt Eunice and Cousin Penelope each had her own affairs toattend to, in the house and the garden. They managed to see no more ofeach other until they sat down to luncheon, just the two of them, in thebig dining-room.

  "I called up Martha Conway this morning," Aunt Eunice spoke, in one ofthe many pauses that fell between them. A little flush--was it shame ordefiance?--was in her withered cheeks. "I wanted to know how the littlegirl was, after her long walk, and all the excitement."

  Penelope's eyes traveled to the picture of Great-aunt Joanna. Her faceflushed redder than Aunt Eunice's.

  "Bad blood will always tell in the long run," she said bitterly. "Tothink of that child's deceiving us all summer, and then leaving us likethat--after all we had done for her--and without a word!"

  "She left a letter for me, remember, Penelope."

  The red patches in Penelope's cheeks were throbbing. Actually if she hadbeen a child, you might have thought she was going to cry.

  "I don't want to _see_ her letter," she snapped.

  "It's on the desk in the library," Aunt Eunice told her placidly.

  If you'll believe it, Aunt Eunice never went near the library all thatafternoon. Whether or not Penelope went there, only Penelope herselfknew, and she never told. Indeed there was little talk of any sort thatnight at dinner, and when Penelope spoke at last, this was what shesaid:

  "I believe we'd better rehang these pictures. I'm really tired oflooking at Great-aunt Joanna. I think she's badly painted, rather.Especially the nose and the eyebrows."

  "Why not change your seat?" Aunt Eunice suggested gently.

  It was very quiet in the house, as Penelope had said. All the quieterbecause Penelope did not touch the piano. She said she was sure it wasout of tune. But the stillness of the house was broken next afternoon,when Mrs. Wheeler Trowbridge and Mrs. Francis Holden came to call.

  They had heard the story of the turned-about girls. Hadn't allLongmeadow heard it in one form or another and nothing lost in thetelling? They were very sympathetic with Aunt Eunice and CousinPenelope, on whom two sly children had played such a disgraceful,downright wicked trick, and they gave them long accounts of how theythemselves managed their children, who never were guilty of anynaughtiness.

  "Cats!" said Penelope after the callers had gone. She was not in thehabit of so far losing control of herself as to call people names, butshe had neither eaten nor slept as she should in the last hours. "Isimply cannot stand these visits of condolence. I'm going to Bostonto-morrow
for a couple of days. Will you come with me, Mother?"

  "I've just got home," Aunt Eunice answered, after a moment. "I don'tthink I'll go jaunting again so soon."

  "You'll be rather--lonely here, won't you?" said Penelope. She hesitateda second, then she spoke quickly, and without looking at her mother."Why don't you send for that child to make you a little visit? You knowyou're dying to see her again."

  They looked at each other, and suddenly Aunt Eunice's old face, thatseemed so soft, was a grim mask of obstinacy.

  "No, Penelope," she said. "She's not coming into this house on anylittle visit. She's had the wrench of leaving here once--and once isenough. She's got to forget us, and forget The Chimnies. It's thekindest way."

  "Yes, of course," Penelope agreed haughtily. "I spoke on impulse--a veryfoolish impulse."

  Aunt Eunice smiled, but so fleetingly that Penelope, brooding on her ownthoughts, never marked it.

  Penelope went to the city and was gone a day, and a night, and most ofanother day. She came home with a lot of boxes. She had done a littleshopping, she said. There was much to talk about that night atdinner--relatives that Penelope had seen in Boston, and new things inthe shops. Penelope talked quite gayly, perhaps because her seat attable had been changed, and she no longer had to face the mocking eyesof Great-aunt Joanna, who like all Longmeadow, she felt, was laughing ather, and with reason!

  Over the coffee in the library, by the soft light of the candles, AuntEunice at last began in her turn to tell what she had been doing. Shehad been to tea yesterday at the Holdens. She had attended a meeting ofthe Sewing Guild that afternoon.

  "And last evening," she ended mildly, "I had Martha Conway here for agood long talk."

  "Oh!" said Penelope, with a queer smile. "While the cat's away, Mother?Well--how's that niece of hers?"

  Aunt Eunice stirred her coffee attentively.

  "Little Caroline's mother seems to have been an exceptionally finewoman," she said at length. "One could see that from the child's prettyways. Quite gifted musically, too. There are no near relatives on themother's side. On the father's side Martha is the child's nearest ofkin, and her guardian. Martha has all she can do to provide for her ownchildren, and the two babies she's already taken. She's a good woman ifever there was one! She'll do the best she can for Caroline, but shewouldn't stand in the child's light, and indeed I think she'd berelieved if some one else----"

  Penelope laughed outright, and there was something very like relief inher laughter.

  "You blessed old schemer!" she said. "Why don't you do what you've beenpining to do ever since the little girl went out of this house? Have herhere to stay--indefinitely."

  Aunt Eunice smiled, but she shook her head.

  "Martha Conway is as set as I am against any idea of visits," she said."It's not fair to the child to accustom her to our way of living, andthen at seventeen or eighteen turn her off, untrained, to take care ofherself."

  There was silence--silence in which the very room seemed to wait for adecision on which lives depended. Then Penelope rose to her feet.

  "If you'll excuse me," she said, in an aloof voice, "I'm going up to bedearly. Really, this Boston trip has quite fagged me out."

  She went away to her room--the room next to the green and golden nestwhere Caroline had lain so many nights, and been so happy. Whether sheread or wrote or merely sat with her own thoughts, nobody knows. At anyrate she didn't sleep as she had said she should.

  About eleven o'clock that same night when Aunt Eunice, in her softdressing-sack of gray and golden crepe, with a lacy cap on her whitehair, sat propped up in her bed, reading (if you'll believe it!) "Alicein the Looking Glass," there came a knock at her door. When Aunt Eunicecalled: "Come in!" Penelope herself trailed into the room.

  Penelope had on the lavender dressing-gown that Caroline loved her in.Her face was quite pale, and her eyes looked big, but rather starlike.She came and stood at the foot of the big mahogany bed, with its fourpillars, and facing Aunt Eunice, spoke breathlessly:

  "Mother, I wouldn't for the world stand in the way of what would give_you_ happiness. After all, this little Caroline comes of good honestLongmeadow blood on her father's side, and her mother seems to have beenmore than all right. And the child is gifted--no doubt about that. Youshould hear Woleski rave over her. So you go ahead and adopt her,Mother! Don't mind _me_. I'm sure I shan't ever raise the slightestobjection."

  Aunt Eunice looked down at the passage she had been reading in her book.It was the place where Alice reaches the lovely garden, where she wishesto be, simply by walking away from it. Aunt Eunice thought very highlyof "Alice in the Looking Glass." She called it the work of aphilosopher, and an excellent rule of conduct. She closed the bookcarefully, over her finger that still kept the place.

  "Adopting a child isn't like adopting a puppy or a kitten," she spokemusingly. "It's a responsibility, and one shouldn't undertake it, unlessone is pretty sure of seeing it through. Now I'm seventy-one, and when Igo, there's no way of my providing for Caroline. Our property istrusteed, as you know, and when I'm done with it, it's absolutely yours,to do with as you please."

  They looked at each other, the two of them. Then Penelope criedpassionately:

  "But I _won't_ adopt her, Mother. I _can't_! After what I've said of theMeadows children--after what every one has heard me say--all my life. Mypride wouldn't _let_ me!

  "Oh, Penelope!" The words on Aunt Eunice's lips were just a breath ofpain.

  "Well, say it--say it!" Penelope cried, in a breaking voice. "Isn't itwhat I'm saying to myself? If it hadn't been for my pride, years ago--ifI'd taken back some silly words I never meant--Jack would have stayed inLongmeadow--Jack would have married me."

  "Penelope--my baby!" Aunt Eunice cried the words in amazement and inpity.

  "Didn't you know--didn't you ever guess?" Penelope's voice was no morethan a whisper. "That was why he went. I drove away the only man Iloved--and if I could do that--for pride, and nothing else--I can putthis wretched child out of my heart--and I'll do it, I tell you, I'll doit, even if it _kills_ me!"