Part 3 (1/2)

In the garden Felice told Mademoiselle D'Ormy who the curly-haired person was--it was not for nothing that Felice had been staring at the pictures in the big Shakespeare Ill.u.s.trated on the drawing-room table.

”It's the Portia Person who is talking with Maman--” she a.s.sured Mademoiselle gravely, ”she looks like a man but she's really a lady--”

The Portia Person was surely as gentle as a lady when he hurried into the garden a little later and sent Mademoiselle back to his client by the fireside. He looked down at Felice--she was embroidering that day, seated primly before the ebony tambour frame.

”Felicia,” he said chokily, ”will you try to remember something? Will you try to remember--if--if your mother goes away and you're ever in trouble that you're to come to see me? That my name is Ralph--John Ralph? And that you'll find me at Temple Bar, here in Brooklyn?”

”Yes, Portia Person,” she answered sweetly, after she had risen as Mademoiselle had told her to when a visitor should arrive. Although she must have been eleven she was trembling with excitement, because he was her first visitor. ”Yes, Portia Person, I will--only, how will I know--that I am in--Trouble--where is Trouble?”

Which seemed to make it hard for the Portia Person.

”I mean, if there's anything you need that you haven't--if there's anything you want some one to tell you about--now do you know?”

She nodded thoughtfully.

”Why, there are things right now that I want some one to tell me about--”

Before he could tell her any of them Mademoiselle came swiftly and let him out through the stable gate talking excitably and softly in French, which Felicia thought most unfair of her.

It is not at all strange that she does not remember when her mother died. You see sometimes there were several days when her mother was too tired or too ill to see such a vigorous person as Felice must have been. She merely remembers that there came a time when she was no longer asked to tiptoe past the door on the second floor landing. But she does remember that the thin visaged old French woman wept one day when she asked her,

”Shall we not go tell Maman I was happy today in the garden?”

She remembers it because they were the first tears she had ever seen and she clapped her hands and said ”How queer, Mademoiselle! There are little rains in your eyes.”

She did not ask to see her mother any more, for when she did Mademoiselle would answer ”Not to-day.” It was somehow a rather difficult time for them all; the Major was morose and sullen and Mademoiselle often had ”little rains” in her eyes. She was not very patient with the lively young person who had grown tall enough to reach even the topmost drawer of the high walnut bureau.

Felicia was exploring them thoroughly one rainy afternoon while Mademoiselle dozed by the nursery fireside. She found a beautiful box with an inlaid cover that was filled with all sorts of fascinating trinkets; earrings and breastpins and droll bracelets of tarnished silver set with jade and coral--queer little letters folded in triangles with gay red wax seals, addressed in French, most of them--a soft black lace shawl--Felicia was trailing about grandly when Mademoiselle awoke to rage and scold.

The child was beginning to long for freedom, she was constantly questioning. Octavia's gentle raillery, Octavia's delicious half answers to the ”Whys and wheres and whens and whats” had satisfied, but Mademoiselle's abrupt, ”I can't tell you--” ”It does not concern you--” ”Zat is not of consequence--” were teaching the child to scheme. She was perpetually trying to find out for herself the things that Mademoiselle declined to tell her. She was especially curious about Maman's closed door. Mademoiselle refused to open it.

But there came a day, when Mademoiselle wasn't looking, when Felice tapped gently at her mother's door and opened it and went in. And when she saw the empty bed and the empty chair she ran in great glee to her grandfather.

”Oh, Oh,” she cried, ”Why didn't you tell me that Maman had gone to the House in the Woods? Why didn't you let me go with her? For she said we would make the garden together!”

He did not answer her at once.

”How did you know?”

”Because Bab.i.+.c.he is gone,” she answered triumphantly. ”And Bab.i.+.c.he wouldn't be gone from the house unless Maman were gone--so they've gone to the House in the Woods--to attend to the garden--with--” she frowned until she remembered ”with Piqueur--unless he is too old to help--and now I will go--”

It was curious how his voice faltered, he looked tireder and more unhappy than in the days when Octavia had made a game of making him happy.

”Felicia,” he groped for words as he faced the questioning-eyed child, ”I--we--you--cannot go to the House in the Woods just now--I have Certain Legal Matters that must be attended to--but we--we will go some day--”

She accepted this with all the earnestness of her eleven years. But at the door she paused, shyly. He looked very ”cross and worried.”

”This afternoon, if you wish,” she said, ”I will play chess with you.

I can do three gambits. I tried them alone yesterday. We'll not play in Maman's room--but in the garden--”