Many Kingdoms Part 8

FOR INSERTION IN TO-MORROW'S "HERALD"

_PHILIP.--The purse was purposely left with you. Its contents are yours._

She put this in an envelope and directed it to the _Herald_ Advertising Department. Then, for the first time, she spoke to the nurse, balancing the envelope absently in her hand as she talked, and not looking once at the other's face. Her tones were level and monotonous, almost as if she were repeating a lesson.

"You need not have worried," she said, answering at last the nurse's first words. "I've had what I've wanted for years--a whole day to myself. I've done what I wanted to do. It's been worth while. But," she added, more slowly, "you needn't ask me about it, for I shall not tell you anything. Ring for a messenger, please. I want this taken to the _Herald_ office at once; give him the money to pay for it."

In silence Miss Manuel obeyed. When the boy came she went into the hall to hand the envelope to him, glancing at the address as she did so. The instant she crossed the threshold Alice Stansbury slipped into the next room and opened a window looking down into a court. As she did so she whimpered like a frightened child.

"I must do it," she whispered. "I must--I must--now--now--now! If I wait, I won't--dare."

When the nurse entered the room there was only the open window to tell her what had happened. Panting, she leaned out and looked down with starting eyes. Far below, on the asphalt floor of the court, was a dark ma.s.s which moved once and then lay still.

The little clock on the table in the inner room struck twelve. Out in the hall the messenger whistled softly as he waited for the elevator.

Hearing these familiar sounds, the nurse cast off the paralysis which had held her, and the silent corridor of the great hotel echoed her useless call for help.

IV

THE SIMPLE LIFE OF GENEVIEVE MAUD

Genevieve Maud reclined in a geranium-bed in an att.i.tude of unstudied ease. On her fat body was a white dress, round her waist was a wide, blue sash, perched on one side of her head was a flaunting blue bow, and in her heart was bitterness. It was dimly comforting to lie down in all this finery, but it did not really help much. She brooded darkly upon her wrongs. They were numerous, and her cherubic little face took on additional gloom as she summed them up. First, she had been requested to be good--a suggestion always unwelcome to the haughty soul of Genevieve Maud, and doubly so this morning when she saw no alternative but to obey it. Secondly, there was no one to play with--a situation depressing to any companionable being, and grindingly so to one who considered all men her peers, all women her unquestioning slaves, and all animals grateful ministers to her needs in lowlier fields of delight.

These delusions, it must be admitted, had been fostered during the four short but eventful years of Genevieve Maud's life. Her method of approach had been singularly compelling; old and young paused not to argue, but freely stripped themselves of adornments she fancied, and animals, from the kitten she carried round by one ear to the great St.

Bernard she half strangled in recurring moments of endearment, bore with her adoringly, and humbly followed the trail of cake she left behind her when she tired of them and trotted off in search of fresh attractions. These were usually numerous; and had they been rarer, the ingenuity of Genevieve Maud would have been equal to the test. There were no social distinctions in her individual world. But one short year ago she had followed a hand-organ man and a monkey to a point safely distant from too-observant relatives and servants; there, beside the chattering monkey, she had sung and danced and scrambled for pennies and shaken a tambourine, and generally conducted herself like a _debutante_ maenad.

That had been a glorious day. She recalled it now smoulderingly, resentfully. Different, indeed, was the tragic present. No one to play with--that was bad enough. But there were still worse conditions. She was not even allowed to play by herself! Rover had been banished to a neighbor's, the kitten had been lent generously to the Joyce children, her human playmates had been warned off the premises, and Genevieve Maud had been urged to be a dear little girl and keep very, very quiet because mamma was sick. As if this was not enough, fate drove its relentless knife and gave it a final twist. Far back in a corner of the garden where she lay, almost hidden by the drooping branches of an old willow, sat her two sisters, Helen Adeline and Grace Margaret, highly superior beings of a stately dignity even beyond their ripe ages of eleven and nine years. They were too old to play with little girls, as they had frequently mentioned to Genevieve Maud, but they were not wholly beyond the power of her spell, and there had been occasions when they had so far forgotten themselves as to descend to her level and enjoy doll tea-parties and similar infantile pleasures. To-day, however, they were of a remoteness. Their plump backs were turned to her, their heads were close together, and on the soft afternoon breeze that floated over the garden were borne sibilant whispers. They were telling each other secrets--secrets from which Genevieve Maud, by reason of her tender years, was irrevocably shut out.

Genevieve Maud sat up suddenly in the flower-bed as the full horror of this truth burst upon her, and then briskly entered into action designed to transform the peace and quiet of the scene. Her small, fat face turned purple, her big, brown eyes shut tight, her round mouth opened, and from the tiny aperture came a succession of shrieks which would have lulled a siren into abashed silence. The effect of this demonstration, rarely long delayed, was instantaneous now. A white-capped nurse came to an up-stairs window and shook her head warningly; the two small sisters rose and scurried across the lawn; a neighbor came to the hedge and clapped her hands softly, clucking mystic monosyllables supposed to be of a soothing nature; neighboring children within hearing a.s.sumed half-holiday expressions and started with a rush to the side of the blatant afflicted one. Surveying all this through half-shut eyes and hearing the steady tramp of the oncoming relief corps, an expression of triumphant content rested for an instant of Genevieve Maud's face. Then she tied it up again into knots of even more disfiguring pattern, took another long breath, and apparently made an earnest effort to attract the attention of citizens of the next towns.h.i.+p. "I'm tired!" was the message Genevieve Maud sent to a sympathetic world on the wings of this megaphonic roar.

The trained nurse, who had rushed down-stairs and into the garden, now reached her side and drastically checked Genevieve Maud's histrionism by spreading a s.p.a.cious palm over the wide little mouth. With her other hand she hoisted Genevieve Maud from the flower-bed and escorted her to neutral ground on the lawn.

"'Tired!'" repeated the irate nurse, as the uproar subsided to gurgles.

"Heavens! I should think you would be, after that!" Helen Adeline and Grace Margaret arrived simultaneously, and the older child took the situation and the infant in hand with her best imitation of her mother's manner.

"I am so sorry you were disturbed, Miss Wynne," she said, "and poor mamma, too. We will take care of Genevieve Maud, and she won't cry any more. We were just making some plans for her future," she ended, loftily.

The mouth of Genevieve Maud, stretched for another yell, was arrested in its distension. Her small ears opened wide. Was she, after all, in the secret? It would seem so, for the nurse, seemingly satisfied, left the three children alone and went back to her patient, while Helen Adeline at once led her small sister to the choice retreat under the willow.

"We are going to talk to you, Genevieve Maud," she began, "ve-ry seriously, and we want you to pay 'tention and try to understand." This much was easy. Mamma usually opened her impressive addresses in such fas.h.i.+on.

"'Pay 'tention and try to understand," echoed Genevieve Maud, and grinned in joyful interest.

"Yes, really try," repeated Helen Adeline, firmly. Then, rather impatiently, and as one bearing with the painful limitations of the young, she went on:

"You're so little, Maudie, you see, you don't know; and you won't know even if we tell you. But you are a spoiled child; every one says so, and mamma said the other day that something should be done. She's sick, so she can't do it, but we can. We've got to take care of you, anyhow, so this is a good time. Now what it really is, is a kind of game.

Gracie and I will play it, and you are going to--to--well, you are going to be the game."

Genevieve Maud nodded solemnly, well satisfied. She was in it, anyhow.

What mattered the petty details? "'Going to be the game,'" she echoed, as was her invariable custom, with the air of uttering an original thought.

Helen Adeline went on impressively.

"It's called the simple life," she said, "and grown-up folks are playing it now. I heard the minister an' mamma talking about it las'

week for hours an' hours an' hours. They give up pomps an' vanerties, the minister says, an' they mus'n't have luxuries, an' they mus' live like nature an' save their souls. They can't save their souls when they have pomps an' vanerties. We thought we'd try it with you first, an'

then if we like it--er--if it's nice, I mean, p'r'aps Grace an' I will, too. But mamma is sick, an' you've had too many things an' too much 'tention, so it's a good time for you to lead the simple life an' do without things."

Genevieve Maud, gazing into her sister's face with big, interested eyes, was vaguely, subconsciously aware that the new game might halt this side of perfect content; but she was of an experimental turn and refrained from expressing any scepticism until she knew what was coming. In the mean time the eyes of her sister Grace Margaret had roamed disapprovingly over Genevieve Maud's white dress, the blue sash that begirded her middle, the rampant bow on her hair. Katie had put on all these things conscientiously, and had then joyfully freed her mind from the burden of thought of the child for the rest of the afternoon.

"Don't you think," Grace Margaret asked Helen Adeline, tentatively, "sashes an' bows is pomps?"

Helen Adeline gave the speaker a stolid, unexpressive glance. She acquiesced.

"Let's take 'em off," went on the younger and more practical spirit.

"Then we won't never have to tie 'em for her, either, when they get loose."

They stripped Genevieve Maud, first of the sash and bows, then of the white gown, next of her soft undergarments, finally, as zeal waxed, even of her shoes and stockings. She stood before them clad in innocence and full of joyful expectation.

"All these fine clothes is pomps an' vanerties," remarked Helen Adeline, firmly. "The minister said so when he was talking with mamma 'bout the simple life, an' Gracie and I listened. It was very interestin'."

She surveyed the innocent nudity of her little sister, "naked but not ashamed," with a speculative glance.

"Katie will be glad, won't she?" she reflected, aloud. "She says there's too much was.h.i.+ng. Now she won't have to do any more for you.

Don't you feel better an' happier without those pomps?" she asked Genevieve Maud.

That young person was already rolling on the gra.s.s, thrusting her little toes into the cool earth, exulting in her new-found sartorial emanc.i.p.ation. If this was the "new game," the new game was a winner.

Grace Margaret, gazing doubtfully at her, was dimly conscious of an effect of incompleteness.

"I think she ought to have a hat," she murmured, at last. Helen Adeline was good-naturedly acquiescent.

"All right," she answered, cheerfully, "but not a pompy one. Papa's big straw will do." They found it and put it on the infant, whose eyes and face were thereby fortunately shaded from the hot glare of the August sun. Almost before it was on her head she had slipped away and was running in and out of the shrubbery, her white body flas.h.i.+ng among the leaves.

"We'll have our luncheon here," announced Helen Adeline, firmly, "an'

I'll bring it out to save Katie trouble. Maudie can't have rich food, of course, 'cos she's livin' the simple life. We'll give her bread off a tin plate."

Grace Margaret looked startled.

"We haven't got any tin plate," she objected.

"Rover has."

Grace Margaret's eyes dropped suddenly, then rose and met her sister's.

An unwilling admiration crept into them.

"How will Maudie learn nice table manners?" she protested, feebly.