Little Miss By-The-Day Part 24

Of course Felicia took her home with her,--that was foreordained from the moment she saw her,--but she had a beautiful row getting her! The Poetry Girl had a "stub, stub, stubborn way" too. She was suspicious, she was wary. She said she didn't care a d.a.m.n where she went but she didn't want any one to take her there. The dentist agreed with her. He took Felicia aside and told her it was his private opinion that the girl was either drunk or on the verge of a nervous breakdown and he thought the best thing to do would be to notify a police matron. In short he was cool and practical. If there was anything Felicia Day couldn't endure it was a Van d.y.k.e beard on a cool and practical man.

She told the Sculptor Girl afterward that it took strength of mind not to pull his silly beard off.

She tucked her thimble in her pocket, folded her ap.r.o.n and asked,

"Will you promise not to let her go till I get my hat?"

"You can't manage her," said the dentist, "I tell you she's irresponsible."

"So am I," confided Felicia serenely, "but I'll come back to-morrow for the sewing. As soon as I get her in bed and Janet brings her some soup she'll be perfectly all right--"

But all the same it wasn't easy getting her home. It was a long walk.

Felicia hadn't two carfares and she had forgotten to ask the dentist for money. To make bad matters worse a heavy down pour of rain overtook them a good half mile from the house. Its cool splatter seemed to bring the Poetry Girl to her senses. She laughed a bit.

"What an idiot!" she exclaimed, "you must think me--my name is Blythe Modder, and usually I'm sane. You see just before I went into that dentist's I did such a fool thing. I bought some patent liniment and put on my tooth and I didn't notice until afterward that it said 'external use only'--I was such an idiot--I think it went to my head-- I'm very much better now."

"Well, come along and get some dry clothes and tea anyhow, then you'll be vairee all right."

She left her with Janet while she ran for the dry clothes. She left her on Janet's immaculate bed in Janet's atrocious dressing gown. Her clothes she unceremoniously turned over to Janet to dry, leaving that practical soul verbose with disgust.

Felicia herself was drenched and she loved it. She was loth to strip the damp clothes off; she felt like running miles and miles in the rain. She was dreamily happy, dreamily miserable; she felt like the day--all tears and smiles both. She dropped the outer garments to floor and pulled her shoes and stockings off. Bab.i.+.c.he sat up and begged for a cracker. Felicia stooped, her damp hair clinging to her beautiful forehead, the long scant chemise that had been Octavia's falling loosely from her smooth shoulders.

"Poor Bab.i.+.c.he," she crooned, "When your mistress does come in--" So intent was she on reaching for the cracker box that she lifted her voice a bit. Dulcie, outside the door ready to tap on it, swung it open just in time to glimpse the charming posture.

Felicia blushed like a sixteen year old. She reached for her dressing gown and pulled it toward her.

But Dulcie Dierckx, slamming the door behind her, leaned against the panels fairly devouring Felicia with her eyes.

"Oh! Oh!" she cried in absolute ecstacy; "Oh, Pandora! Pandora! don't move! How could I have been so stupid not to have seen you before! Oh, please drop the coat! Oh! Oh! you adorable--you beautiful person--you little old peach!"

Felicia laughed. Laughed her soft, breathless laugh and drew the gown closer.

"You--you're rather embarra.s.sing--" she sighed, "Though of course,"

her eyes danced mischievously, "my knees and my ankles and my insteps are vairee nice indeed--I got them all from Louisa, Margot says--and my hands--" she stretched one out--"They're Grandmother Trenton's--and I think I have nice ears--but the rest of me--" she shrugged, "The rest of me won't do at all--my mouth is too big and--no, I wouldn't be at all your Pandora--it's dark here--that's why you thought you saw her--"

"I saw her," insisted the Sculptor Girl stubbornly. "And you'd be a brute not to help me--I--look here," she lied casually, "I didn't tell you but I've managed a bit of money--I'm not asking you to pose for nothing--I can pay you more than you earn at your sewing--"

"Oh, money," she stammered. "I didn't think about money--Sculptor Girl--how could you--"

"Taxes," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Sculptor Girl bluntly. "Interest! You can't forget 'em or we'll all be back in the gutter you know--So that's settled--to-morrow morning at nine--I'll have a good fire--you won't mind awfully, will you, if I hang wet cheese cloth around you--?"

She was trying to keep the excitement out of her voice but her eyes were sparkling. She no longer saw Felicia, she only saw Pandora--the Pandora of her dreams!

But all the same, after she'd lighted her cigarette in her own room she drew a long breath and pottered about her few possessions until she found something p.a.w.nable.

In the shop she bargained coolly enough with the p.a.w.n-broker, pocketed the money she fought for and as she was leaving stopped to gaze casually at the motley array of things in the dusty case. She stared unbelievingly at a quaint mahogany box, warily priced two or three other things and finally asked "how much for the damaged writing case?" Ten minutes later she fled with it under her arm. It didn't look like much. It was quite empty and it would make a nice box for Pandora to be opening. But over and over her heart was pounding,

"It's the same Bee on it that's on her brushes--it's the same Bee she has said was on the silver--it's--oh, if it only could be hers!"

She burst in upon the Poetry Girl (now warm and snug in some of Dulcie's own garments) and Felicia sitting by the nursery fire. They were having a friendly little party. Felicia introduced the two girls with the affable hope they'd be nice neighbors. "Blythe's coming to have the front room next as soon as Cross Eyes can pink-wash it--" Her eyes glimpsed the box, she fairly ran for it, "That's Maman's," she exclaimed, "How did you find it?" She hugged it delightedly; she opened it--"Even its emptiness smells nice," she sighed.

"Oughtn't there to be a secrud pocket in it, m'loidy? With the missing will and the dagger he stabbed her with?"

"Nothing like that," laughed Miss Day with one of her delicious excursions into slang, "it was just for Maman's writing things--but I'm _that_ proud to have it--"

She was still holding the box when Janet brought up their dinner.

After the Poetry Girl had left, she settled herself for her scolding.

She knew that she was due for it. For naturally she had to confess that she'd asked Miss Modder to come live in the house.

"What's she paying?" demanded Janet.

"A good bargain, I made. It's like this--she writes, you know, so she doesn't get her money everyday as you and I do, Janet. She's more like--well, Dulcie when she's sculpting. So I made a bargain with her that she'd not pay her rent just now, that she'll pay later. She's to pay some girl's rent for as long as she stays herself rent free, do you see? As soon as she can she'll pay her own rent and she'll pay another rent too, that's vairee business like, don't you think, Dulcie?"

Dulcie solemnly a.s.sured Janet she "couldn't beat it." She offered to enter into a similar agreement. Janet couldn't get any sense out of either of them. She retired baffled and defeated.

"All the same," confessed Dulcie, "You've got to quit bringing home losers, Miss Day. You ought to pick one winner just to square yourself with Janet."

Felicia promised. And, mirabile dictu, kept her word the very next week.

Of all the persons that her mistress brought home Janet really approved of only that one. But that one, as she grudgingly admitted, made up for the whole "s.h.i.+ftless crew."

"She's Christian," she a.s.sured Felice solemnly, "A Christian." Which was the more delightful from the fact that her sect was one that Janet had hitherto scorned as "Irish Roman Catolic." But just to look at Molly O'Reilly was to know you'd love her. Fat, oh, ridiculously fat, in comparison with the rest of that skinny household--ruddy, glowingly ruddy, beside that pale-faced "crew." Just by the law of contrasts they adored her when they saw her--especially after they'd tasted her heavenly food.

Miss By-the-Day met her in the laundry of a great house where she'd put in a day mending curtains and table linen. Not a bad sort of job if one had a suitable spot to work in; but a laundry, a steamy, soapy, wet-woolens-smelling laundry is not a comfortable place to sew. By noon Felice wanted to indulge in one of Dulcie's weeps--she was so nervous--when there entered, bearing a tray, Molly O'Reilly, with her blue sleeves rolled over her dimpled elbows and her red hair lightly dusted with flour.

"Here's something to put inside you--" she called to the perspiring colored woman who was was.h.i.+ng and the tiny white person who was laboriously darning thin net, "something to think on save work." She stole a keen glance at the seamstress. "Yours goes on this bit of table; Susy, put down the top of your toobs and get a stool."

Ah, that food! Even Margot couldn't cook like Molly O'Reilly. Why, Molly cooked as Janet scrubbed, as the Poetry Girl wrote, as the Sculptor Girl modeled--by inspiration! There wasn't anything on that tray she put before Felicia that hadn't been made from crumbs that fell from the rich man's feast. Yet so cunningly had she warmed it, so deftly had she flavored it, so daintily had she garnished it that it seemed food ambrosial. Felicia let her fork slide into delectable crust underneath which snuggled the tenderest chicken she'd ever tasted in her life. Bits of carrots and celery and potatoes drifted idly about a sea of creamy gravy--um--when you go to Montrose Place order "Old Fas.h.i.+oned Chicken Pie."

The artist who had created this delight sat easily against the laundry sill and grumbled.

"Coompany, coompany all hours. And niver a sound of them reaching the kitchen. Meals from marning till night and me niver seeing them ate.

You'd think I'd be contint--the wages is so gr'rand, but honest, Susy, I was happier doing gineral housework for brides at twenty per mont'-- at least I'd a bit of heart put in me, I heard something savin' a voice on the house 'phone sayin',

"'Dinner fur eight at seven o'clock--' I'm going to quit. As soon as iver I can find a partner. I'm going to open one of these stylish tea rooms where's I can peep through the door and see me food bein'

appreciated--"

Can't you almost hear Felicia talking with her, describing the kitchen and the back yard and the dumb-waiter that goes up to Grandy's room and stops at Maman's room and on up to the old nursery? Can't you see Felicia triumphantly bringing Mollyhome to look it over? And can't you almost hear the lovely Irish songs that Molly's mother taught her? And Felicia pretending that she is Molly's mother? If you can't, why I'm afraid you haven't really understood Felicia.

So the days grew longer and sweeter and the little after-dinner group in the garden grew bigger--think of the excitement of the day when the lawyer brought home the architect and his timid wife! They came to live in Maman's room, the room that Felice had intended to keep for herself. But you'll know presently why she gave it to them. You remember it was only one flight up. He was a young architect well able to climb but Mrs. Architect couldn't. And he was a very new architect.

Felice said staunchly that she wouldn't think of having an old fat successful architect around, that he'd be bored with all the small jobs the house needed, but this obliging young one, now HE was quite willing to work hours over where new bathrooms might go--if they ever had any tub money, or where old lattices could be replaced--if they ever had any lattice money. You see the idea was that he could pay his room rent architecting, a "vairee practical" idea Felice a.s.sured Janet. But Janet sniffed.

Everybody brought somebody else. Janet didn't approve of any of them but she did love them all! That was the unanswerable argument about all these persons who flocked to the house in Montrose Place--they were so lovable! Such buoyant souls, who hadn't quite gotten a grip on life but were pathetically sure that once they did--!

They triumphantly felt that the fact they'd been starving mostly, helped to prove their genius. Though Felice could never see it that way. Long after the rest were in bed she used to walk pa.s.sionately up and down Mademoiselle's tiny room.

"They're all starlings singing that they can't get out--it's not fair --not a bit right--they ought not to starve, they ought not to freeze.

And folks who say so are stupid! You can't grow roses like weeds--just anywhere! And they're going to be the roses in the garden of world-- they ought to be in the sun, they ought to be watched so carefully-- why can't the stupid old world see it! But it doesn't. It just tramples and chokes and freezes them until it's a wonder they evaire do blossom at all. And di-_rectly_ they do--the world's surprised--huh-- I should think it would be! It's not fair. It's all wrong. When I find the Portia Person I shall do something, I shall buy the church next door and I shall make a school. It shall be a school where you learn to do one useful thing that will earn your bread and b.u.t.ter. And the rest of the time--you shall dream." Bab.i.+.c.he was a patient listener. But even Bab.i.+.c.he yawned at all the Utopian theories with which her mistress would reform the world.

Do you remember the chauffeur who promised Felice a "joy-ride"? Can't you see his fatuous grin one day as he listened to a drawling young- sounding voice over the telephone of Seeley's Boarding house, a voice that he couldn't remember at all, demurely saying,