Who Cares? A Story of Adolescence

by Cosmo Hamilton

  XI

  "Rather beg than work, wouldn't he? I call him Micawber because he'salways waiting for something to turn up."

  Joan wheeled round. To hear a stranger's voice in a place that waspeculiarly hers and Martin's amazed and offended her. It wasunbelievable.

  A girl was sitting in the long grass, hatless, with her hands claspedround her knees. The sun lit up her bobbed hair that shone like brassand had touched her white skin with a warm finger. Wistful and elfish,sitting like Puck on a toadstool, she might have slipped out of somemossy corner of the woods to taste the breeze and speculate about life.She wore a butter-colored sport shirt wide open at the neck and browncord riding breeches and puttees. Slight and small boned and ratherthin she could easily have passed for a delicate boy or, except forsomething at the back of her eyes that showed that she had not alwayslived among trees, for Peter Pan's brother of whom the world had neverheard.

  Few people would have recognized in this spring maid the Tootles ofBroadway and that rabbit warren in West Forty-sixth Street. The dew ofthe country had washed her face and lips, and the choir voices ofMartin's big cathedral had put peace and gentleness into her expression.

  She ran her eyes with frank admiration over the unself-consciouslypatrician Joan in her immaculate town clothes and let them rest finallyon a face that seemed to her to be the most attractive that she hadever seen, for all that its expression made her want to scramble to herfeet and take to her heels. But she controlled herself and sat tight,summoned her native impertinence to the rescue and gave a friendly nod.After all, it was a free country. There were no princesses knockingabout.

  "You don't look as if you were a pal of squirrels," she said.

  Joan's resentment at the unexpected presence of this interloper onlylasted a moment. It gave way almost immediately before interest andcuriosity and liking,--even, for a vague reason, sympathy.

  "I've known this one all his life," she said. "His father and motherwere among my most intimate friends and, what's more, his grandfatherand grandmother relied on me to help them out in bad times."

  The duet of laughter echoed among the trees.

  With a total lack of dignity the squirrel retired and stood, with erecttail, behind a tuft of coarse grass, wondering what had happened.

  "It's a gift to be country and look town," said Tootles, withunconcealed flattery. "It's having as many ancestors as the squirrels,I suppose. According to the rules I ought to feel awkward, oughtn't I?"

  "Why?"

  "Well, I'm trespassing. I saw it in your eyes. 'Pon my soul it neveroccurred to me before. Shall I try and make a conventional exit or mayI stay if I promise not to pinch the hill? This view is better thanface massage. It rubs out all the lines. My word, but it's good to bealive up here!"

  The mixture of cool cheek and ecstasy, given forth in the patois of theLondon suburbs, amused Joan. Here was a funny, whimsical, pathetic,pretty little thing, she thought--queerly wise, too, and with all abouther a curious appeal for friendship and kindness. "Stay, of course,"she said. "I'm very glad you like my hill. Use it as often as you can."She sat down on the flat-topped piece of rock that she had so oftenshared with Martin. There was a sense of humanity about this girl thathad the effect of a magnet. She inspired confidence, as Martin did.

  "Thanks most awfully," said Tootles. "You're kinder than you think tolet me stay here. And I'm glad you're going to sit down for a bit. Ilike you, and I don't mind who knows it."

  "And I like you," said Joan.

  And they both laughed again, feeling like children. It was acharacteristic trick of Fate's to bring about this meeting.

  "I don't mind telling you now," went on Tootles, all barriers down,"that I've come up here every evening for a week. It's a thousand yearssince I've seen the sun go to bed and watched the angels light thestars. It's making me religious. The Broadway electrics have alwaysbeen between me and the sky.... Gee, but it's goin' to be great thisevening." She settled herself more comfortably, leaned back against thestump of a tree and began to smile like a child at the Hippodrome inexpectation of one of the "colossal effects."

  Joan's curiosity was more and more piqued, but it was rather to knowwhat than who this amazingly natural little person was. For all heryouth there were lines round her mouth that were eloquent of a storybegun early. Somehow, with Martin away and giving no sign, Joan wasglad, and in a way comforted, to have stumbled on some one, young likeherself, who had obviously faced uncertainty and stood at thecrossroads. "I'd like to ask you hundreds of questions," she saidimpulsively. "Do you mind?"

  "No, dearie. Fire away. I shan't have to tell you any fables to keepyou interested. I broke through the paper hoop into the big ring when Iwas ten. Look! See those ducks flyin' home? The first time I saw them Ithought it was a V-shaped bit of smoke running away from one of thefactories round Newark."

  She had told Martin that. His laugh seemed still to be in the air.

  "Are you married?" asked Joan suddenly.

  "Not exactly, dearie," replied Tootles, without choosing her words. Buta look at the young, eager, sweet face bent towards her made her decideto use camouflage. "What I mean is, no, I'm not. Men don't marry mewhen it isn't absolutely necessary. I'm a small part chorus lady, ifyou get my point."

  Joan was not quite sure that she did. Her sophistication had not gonefarther up than Sixty-seventh Street or farther down than Sherry's, andit was bounded by Park Avenue on the one side and Fifth Avenue on theother. "But would you like to have been married?" All her thoughts justthen were about marriage and Marty.

  Tootles shook her head and gave a downward gesture with an open handthat hardly needed to be amplified. "No, not up to a few weeks ago.I've lived by the stage, you see, and that means that the men I've comeacross have not been men but theatricals. Very different. You may takemy word. When I met my first man I didn't believe it. I thought he wasthe same kind of fake. But when I knew that he was a manalright,--well, I wanted to be married as much as a battered fishingsmack wants to get into harbor." She was thinking of Marty too,although not of marriage any more.

  "And are you going to be?"

  "No, dearie. He's got a wife, it turns out. It was a bit o' cheek everto dream of hitting a streak of such luck as that. All the same, I'vewon something that I shall treasure all the days of my life.... Look.Here come some of the mourners." She pointed to three crows thatflapped across a sky all hung with red and gold.

  Joan was puzzled. "Mourners?"

  "Why, yes. Isn't this the death bed of a day?"

  "I never thought of it in that way," said Joan.

  "No," said Tootles, running her eyes again over Joan's well-groomedyoung body. "That's easy to see. You will, though, if ever you wantevery day to last a year. You're married, anyway."

  "Not exactly," said Joan, unconsciously repeating the other girl'sexpression.

  Tootles looked at Martin's ring. "What about that, then?"

  Joan looked at it too, with a curious gravity. It stood for so muchmore than she had ever supposed that it would. "But I don't knowwhether it's going to bind us, or not."

  "And you so awfully young!"

  "I was," said Joan.

  The girl who had never had any luck darted a keen, examining glance atthe girl who had all the appearance of having been born lucky. Married,as pretty as a picture, everything out of the smartest shops, theowner, probably, of this hill and those woods, and the old house thatshe had peeped at all among that lovely garden--she couldn't have comeup against life's sharp elbow, surely? She hoped not, most awfully shehoped not.

  Joan caught the look and smiled back. There was kindness here, andcomradeship. "I've nothing to tell," she said, "yet. I'm just beginningto think, that's the truth, only just. I've been very young andthoughtless, but I'm better now and I'm waiting to make up for it. I'mnot unhappy, only a little anxious. Everything will come right though,because my man's a man, too."

  Tootles made a long arm and put her hand on Joan's. "In that case, makeup for it bigly, deari
e," she said earnestly. "Don't be afraid to give.There are precious few real men about and lots of women to make asnatch at them. It isn't being young that matters. Most troubles arebrought about, at your time of life, by not knowing when to stop beingyoung. Good luck, Lady-bird. I hope you never have anything to tell.Oh, just look, just look!"

  Joan followed the pointing finger, but held the kind hand. And they satin silence watching "the fair frail palaces, the fading Alps andarchipelagoes, and great cloud-continents of sunset seas." And as shesat, enthralled, the whole earth hushed and still, shadows lurkingtowards the east, the evening air holding its breath, the night readybehind the horizon for its allotted work, God's hand on everything, itwas of Marty that Joan thought, Marty whom she must have hurt so deeplyand who had gone away without a word or a sign, believing that she wasstill a kid. Yes, she WOULD make up for it, bigly, bigly, and he shouldbe happy, this boy-man who was a knight.

  And it was of Martin that Tootles, poor, little, unlucky Tootles,thought also. All her life she would have something to which to lookback, something precious and beautiful, and his name, stamped upon herheart, would go down with her to the grave.

  And they stayed there, in silence, holding hands, until the last touchof color had gone out of the sky and the evening air sighed and movedon and the night climbed slowly over the dim horizon. They might havebeen sisters.

  And then Joan rose in a sort of panic. "I must go," she said nervously,forgetting that she had grown up. "Good night, Fairy."

  Tootles stood up too. "Good night, Lady-bird. Make everything comeright," and held out her hand.

  Joan took it again and went forward and kissed the odd little girl whowas her friend.

  And a moment later Tootles saw her disappearing into the wood, like aspirit. When she looked up at the watching star and waved her hand, itseemed all misty.