Part 11 (1/2)
”He's given me an idea,” he announced suddenly. ”Or perhaps it was Tom's gossip about him. How'd you like to do an ingenue part like that missing lady affair--start with your head over a garden wall--call it 'The Heart of a Boy,' say--fill it up with this stuff Hamilt calls youth--”
Tommie absorbed his last pastry.
”I've just remembered the girl's name,” he announced, wiping a crumb from his moist lips. ”It was Felicia something or other--sort of sad, wasn't it?”
”Maybe it would have been sadder if she'd married him,” suggested Edwina ironically. ”He is a grouch, you can't get around that.”
And the grouch, striding briskly up the avenue, was trying to be fair.
”Poor old Tommie!” he thought ruefully, ”I don't know why I should go on hating him because he will blab--it's the nature o' the beast--that stupid little much-divorced animal that married him--” he glared at two innocent young shoppers who were pa.s.sing, ”Gad, women are such sophisticated cows nowadays--” Spring always made him wretched, spring always made him fretful, spring always sent him off for the woods somewhere, any woods so long as it was woods. He pondered over whether he could get away Friday or would have to wait till Sat.u.r.day morning, and eventually decided on Sat.u.r.day, consulting a memorandum book scowlingly as he did so, jotting down appointments. He noted that he would have to be in his office at five o'clock on Friday. Somebody or other was going to telephone him about something. Which made him reflect irritably that of all the mechanical devices of a mechanical age the thing he hated most of all was a telephone! He could scarcely endure the stupid way everybody shrieked ”h.e.l.lo!” through it. He wished morosely that he could take a week-end trip without any luggage whatever because he always had a row about his luggage. He wished there was some system whereby one needn't always lose half one's luggage.
Felicia could have told him! Infrequent traveler that she was she had been properly educated on that point. However much she may have yawned, at the tender age of ten, over a certain dissertation on the etiquette of travel, given one summer afternoon by Mademoiselle D'Ormy, Felicia aged twenty-seven, embarked upon her first journey alone, found herself musing with mighty comfort upon the charming definiteness of those never-to-be-forgotten axioms. For Mademoiselle had made the small Felicia recite them over and over until she was letter perfect.
”On a journey the traveler should enumerate all the traveling equipment in fives to avoid the confusion caused by losing one's belongings. Count upon the fingers what one has possessed upon starting.”
All unconscious of the amused glances of her fellow pa.s.sengers, Felicia Day, in her absurd bonnet and antiquated traveling coat sat primly in the Pullman section that the doctor's thoughtfulness had provided for her and counted her ”five” just before her train reached New York. She smiled as she counted, a whimsical smile--
Item one. A letter! A beautiful letter, reposing next her heart under the stiff bodice of a frock that had once belonged to Josepha, mother- in-law of Major Trenton.
Item two. One fluffy, sleepy Blenheim spaniel hidden in the capacious sleeve of a coat that had been Octavia's.
Item three. A long and narrow knitted reticule, once carried by Louisa, wife of Major Trenton, now containing bills and coins placed there by Margot, said reticule held firmly, as Margot had directed, with the center twisted firmly around Felicia's left wrist.
Item four. One russet leather traveling bag once used by Major Trenton, now containing modest rolls of ancient lingerie, Octavia's ma.s.sive silver brushes and combs, a faded India dressing-gown belonging to whom even Margot couldn't remember, on top of which was tucked a flat wicker basket containing small cakes and sandwiches wrapped neatly in a napkin and weighted over all these contents, where Felicia herself had placed it when Margot wasn't looking--THE THEORY AND PRACTISE OF GARDENING!
”Perhaps the wistaria will have to be pruned--perhaps the ivy around the fountain will need tr.i.m.m.i.n.g--maybe the narcissi will need thinning out when they're through blossoming--I'm stupid about narcissi. I've been living so long where there weren't any--” Her thoughts had raced longingly toward the back yard of her childhood while Margot had been packing the bag.
Item five. ”Myself,” decided Felicia nodding, ”I must be careful not to lose myself.”
Which, droll as it seemed when she enumerated, proved to be the most difficult item to remember.
”_Likewise on a journey especially of a business nature, one should keep clearly in mind the exact order of destination, choosing the most urgent first._”
Destination first. ”Temple Bar” where one may find the Portia Person who long ago promised to help should one ever be ”in Trouble.”
Destination second. The address at the bottom of a grimy handbill that announced ”To be sold at auction for unpaid taxes--By the order of J.
K. Harlow, Justice of the--”
Destination _really_! Eighteen Columbia Heights!
”First,” Felicia at least began her thinking clearly, ”I shall go to see the Judge and I shall say 'Don't sell Grandy's house because Certain Legal Matters hasn't attended to things. Just wait. I know another lawyer, he's in Temple Bar. He will attend to everything.' Oh no! First I'll go find the Portia Person and while he is attending to everything I will send a letter to Dudley Hamilt's house--then I will go to Grandy's house and wait for Dudley Hamilt to come--oh! oh!
Bab.i.+.c.he--I can't arrange things clearly in mind, I can't no matter how I try! Only I must--”
So over and over to the roar of the train she tried to drill herself.
”First the Portia Person--then the Judge--”
It was nine o'clock in the morning when, tired and bewildered, she emerged from the subway at Borough Hall, Brooklyn. The little hand, that ”had never spread itself over a doork.n.o.b or a fire-iron or any clumsy thing” struggled valiantly with the russet bag; the new Bab.i.+.c.he, cramped and shaken from her day and night of travel, poked her snubby nose from under the traveling coat and sniffed and squeakingly yawned. Louisa's bonnet had worked itself askew, the sharp wind from the river was flapping the heavy clothing about her slender ankles and displaying the outlandish old ”Congress gaiter” shoes. A distressed and ridiculous figure, she stood and shuddered at the roar of the elevated above her and the jangle of the surface cars that clattered past her and trembled at the disconcerting honk of the motors that barely escaped crus.h.i.+ng her.
Officer Brennan, pompously regulating the congested traffic watched the grotesque person on the curbstone and chuckled.