Part 21 (2/2)
”Thou art the soul of a summer's day, Thou art the breath of a rose; But the summer is fled and the rose is dead; Where are they gone, who knows, who knows?
”Thou art the blood of my heart of hearts, Thou art my soul's repose; But my heart's grown numb and my soul is dumb--”
The song stopped abruptly.
”Sorry. Can't sing it.--'Night, Uncle Peter. 'Night everybody--” A door banged.
”Gad, he's a queer chap! If I had his voice I'd sing--” she caught the fatuous phrases of the man who had laughed but after that she was no longer sure of herself. She could only hear the m.u.f.fled rise of her own sobbing.
The chauffeur asked a respectful question at the doorway.
”Why, yes,” answered Freddie Alden, ”the maid 'phoned--wait a minute-- Hullo--” he called. But a second later he was racing upward,
”I say, Miss Grant--this little woman here--she's fainted--”
CHAPTER V
”CERTAIN LEGAL MATTERS”
Of Janet MacGregor and why she couldn't abide Mrs. Freddie Alden the Poetry Girl once said epics could have been written. Janet was gaunt and wiry, the relict of the late Jock MacGregor, who had cared for Uncle Peter Alden's horses for a lifetime and died leaving his savings and a bit of life insurance to Janet, together with an admonition to ”keep an eye on Mr. Peter.”
Janet did. She dropped into the Alden kitchen frequently of an evening to glean a melancholy satisfaction from the morbid details of Uncle Peter's lingering betwixt life and death. Whenever--which was frequent--there was an upheaval in the Alden's domestic arrangements, Janet filled in the gaps, spoke her mind freely to Mrs. Freddie, secure in the knowledge that Mrs. Freddie wouldn't talk back until a new cook arrived, and usually departed in a wholesome rage--which didn't at all deter her from accepting Mr. Freddie's sizable peace offering.
To see her ”was.h.i.+ng oop” after dinner on an evening when she was about to depart FOREVER--or anyhow until Mr. Freddie came for her again--was a tremendous sight. Especially on an evening when at the highest moment of her justifiable wrath Mr. Freddie would appear and nonchalantly suggest a ”few eats for some chaps who'd dropped in” as casually as though Janet were not already on the verge of explosion.
Of course she would prepare the lunch, stabbing the bread-saw viciously into the defenseless loaf and muttering dark things as she a.s.sembled something she called ”old doves” on a big Sheffield platter.
Janet couldn't cook at all but she could arrange things as beautifully as her ancestors did--and they had been a race of public park gardeners! There wasn't anything she couldn't do with some parsley, a can of sardines and the cheese that was left from dinner. And then she would wait grimly for the platter. Not for anything, even though she were leaving FOREVER, would Janet let the remnants remain to stain that sacred platter. Besides if she waited she always had a fine chance to growl whimpering things about what an hour it was for a decent widow woman to be a-walkin' the roads and to agree, feebly, oh very feebly, that maybe Mr. Freddie was right, that it wouldn't hurt the chauffeur to drive her back to her tiny flat.
This particular evening Janet had been speaking her mind so freely that the new dining-room girl had fled absolutely dazed by Janet's dark threat that, Mr. Peter or no Mr. Peter, she, Janet MacGregor, would never let her shadow rest again on the Alden walls. She would tell Mr. Freddie that, she would let him understand that she didn't have to take Miss' Alden's lip, that she, at least, wasn't married to her, that she had some spirit left even if she was a widow woman. And that she wasn't dependent on the Aldens nor anybody else. That she was going to quit service of any kind--day of week or month. She had a grand chance to open a window-cleaning emporium. She could get the ladders and harnesses and chamois scrubs for almost nothing from the widow of a boss cleaner who had cleaned a twenty-second story window without the aid of one of his own reliable harnesses. She didn't care so much for her flat anyhow. She was going to find a bas.e.m.e.nt, she was, with a long hall to keep the ladders in and a sunny front room for her to live in and put her sign in the window. But with the Aldens she was through--unless, of course, Mr. Freddie wanted to give her a window-cleaning contract.
She had been loitering near the pantry door shamelessly eavesdropping during Dudley Hamilt's song because she hoped that meant the gentlemen would be going and that she could air her grievances while Mr. Freddie smoked and chuckled at her grumbling. So that when Mr. Freddie called for Miss Grant, Janet was on the stairs a good three seconds before that professionally calm person appeared.
Janet sat on the landing window seat and cuddled Felicia in her thin arms, crooning over her like a setting hen.
”There, there--don't ye mind her--” she lifted glum eyes to Mr.
Freddie as she soothed the sobbing woman, ”It's this that Miss'
Freddie's tantrums brings the help to! Many a time have I masel' felt like givin' way the way this poor soul is givin' way. It's on'y ma fierce pride that saves me--don't ye cry over Miss' Freddie's way o'
speakin'--”
”It wasn't Mrs. Freddie, it wasn't anybody--” Felicia lifted her streaming eyes from Janet's spare bosom. She was deeply chagrined that the group hovering on the stairway could see her tears. ”It was just that--I was tired--that Uncle Peter's room was rather hot--that I liked to hear the man sing--I'm vairee well--” Her drawling ”vairee”
sounded anything but well, it was almost a sob in itself. ”Truly vairee well--”
She was still ”very well” a few moments later when she and Janet settled themselves in the luxurious car. They were the oddest pair.
Janet's bonnet and shawl were as battered as Felicia's garb; exhausted as she was Felicia found herself whimsically wondering how she'd tell herself from Janet when it was time to get out. Felicia's tears had dissolved in little smothered hysterical sniffs. She was laughing at Janet's scolding because the seamstress had refused to take what Mr.
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