Part 15 (1/2)
”No manners at all. A manner,” said the Justice neatly.
Back in the little hall room she sat dizzily on the edge of the bed and divided the last of Margot's dry sandwiches with Bab.i.+.c.he. They were both ravenously hungry. Felicia turned the few coins out of Louisa's old purse and contemplated them. Wherever she had turned in these two busy days she had had to pay, she was perpetually asked for money.
And quite surely she must have some more. She couldn't ask Margot, and the ”receiver for the estate” would give her none. She stared at the smug faced shepherdesses.
”Where,” she thought, ”Do persons get money?”
The shepherdesses smiled back stupidly.
Bab.i.+.c.he answered her really. Having all there was to eat the wee dog settled herself uncomfortably on the thin pillow.
”If I knew where the Wheezy was I'd have her make you a cus.h.i.+on--oh!
oh! Bab.i.+.c.he! How stupid I've been! The Wheezy got money, Mademoiselle used to give it to her from Maman's purse, two dollars every day--for sewing--why, Bab.i.+.c.he, I can sew beautifully--much better than the Wheezy!”
It was a delightful moment, a self-reliant, decisive moment. Her eyes sparkled, she caught up the ugly bonnet, she could hardly hurry fast enough to find The Woman's Exchange and Employment Agency. She even remembered the sign in the window.
”Applications for work received Tuesdays and Fridays.” She was so glad that it was Friday that she could have whistled. So down the stairs they went again, the little dog and mistress, and straight around the corner, past the old church, there they stopped for Felicia to read what she hadn't stopped to read before,
”THIS PROPERTY FOR SALE OR TO LET SUITABLE FOR GARAGE OR MOVING PICTURES APPLY YOUR OWN BROKER”
She stumbled around uncollected garbage, she waited impatiently for impudent children to move out of her way, she thrilled with rage at the sordid world about her.
”That pattern of it all is gone--I can't see how it was unless I close my eyes,” she thought.
But when she came to the faded sign ”WOMAN'S EXCHANGE AND EMPLOYMENT AGENCY” she smiled. For that at least was exactly as it had been save that it looked tinier and dingier than it had in the old days. She opened the iron-grilled door, her eager heart antic.i.p.ating the tinkling jangle of the spring bell at the rear, and when the shadowy curtains parted and a grizzled head, surmounted by gold-rimmed spectacles tucked above a worried forehead appeared, Felicia could have cried out with delight.
For there was the Disagreeable Walnut, limping more painfully than she had used to limp, blinking more uncertainly than she had used to blink. Her rasping voice came thinner and more peevish than it had twenty years ago but she called out just the same,
”Well, what's your business?”
Felicia listened dreamily; she seemed to be absorbing the whole shop, the dusty shelves lined with useless ”fancy” work, into whose fas.h.i.+oning no fancy at all had crept; the cracked show counters filled with pasty china daubed with violets and cross-eyed cupids,--propped up rakishly in the very front of the dustiest, most battered case of all the fat string dolly leaned despondently and smiled her red floss smile.
”Oh, how you've lasted!” breathed Felicia.
”What?” shrilled the Disagreeable Walnut, blus.h.i.+ng under her shriveled skin.
”I mean--the little person made of string--” murmured Felicia abashed.
”I saw her here--when we came for The Wheezy--Mademoiselle D'Ormy and I.”
The Disagreeable Walnut snorted.
”Oh, that Mademoiselle D'Ormy,” she squinted through her adjusted gla.s.ses, her shaking, purple-veined hands fumbling with the silk that was wound around the bows to protect her thin old temples, ”She hain't been here this long while, have you seen her?”
”Do you know me?” demanded Felicia stepping very close.
”Don't know as I do--yet it seems like I did too--you hain't been here in a long while, have ye?”
”Don't you remember--I lived in that same house where Mademoiselle D'Ormy stayed--she brought me in here when I was a little girl--when we came to get the Wheezy to sew--”
The Disagreeable Walnut shook her head.