Part 27 (1/2)
Of course there was more than a possibility that Felicia might find something among Major Trenton's effects. The Portia Person was sure that another thirty days' stay could be secured to enable Felicia to go to the House in the Woods and see if she could find anything, but she made it quite clear to them that the old man's mental condition precluded the probability that he could be of any help to them.
”It's not fair--it's not fair--” her tempestuous heart beat angrily, ”Always when I seem to find what I must have, it is as though I had found nothing. This is worse than when I lost Dudley Hamilt--it's not fair--”
She spoke the last three words aloud in her intensity, so bitterly, that the two men, packeting together the papers, turned quickly.
”It's beastly,” agreed the Portia Person inadequately, ”but you mustn't lose hope yet--”
She caught at his glib words eagerly.
”How silly of me! It was only the Tired part of me that spoke!” She smiled. ”I am like Dulcie's Pandora a little. I have opened the box and let out all the troubles--but perhaps I haven't let out Hope-- probably everything is as right as right can be--in some of Grandy's papers--”
She was grateful that she had this hope to hold out to her ”children”
--she thought of them always now as children, these folk who dwelt about her. Perhaps she caught that feeling from Molly, who mothered every one of them.
Of course the journey to the House in the Woods availed nothing. It only brought Felicia back, graver and quieter than ever. The Majorhadn't recognized her at all. He had merely called her Louisa and forbade her to go to Paris, and Piqueur, Margot, Bele, and Zeb had poured out their little troubles to her so that the trip had left her despondent.
She went back to her work dully; she st.i.tched as daintily and carefully as ever, but her whole spirit drooped. This was the end of all her high hopes and great dreams,--that in less than a fortnight she would have to give up the struggle.
At least she was very busy during those warm April days. She had amusing things to sew upon, little tarltan skirts for children who were to appear in a huge charitable ”May Day” entertainment. They were of gay colors, those frills, like big holly-hocks, she thought as she flung the finished things into a hamper. She helped to make other costumes too, sitting with a score of seamstresses in the auditorium of one of the churches. These women talked a great deal about the entertainment. Naturally, each one of them talked only about the person or the committee who had hired her.
Yet engrossed in her anxieties for her household as she st.i.tched and st.i.tched Felicia listened not at all to the chatter about her. It was merely like the humming of the bees in her garden in the woods. She heard it but heeded it not, because her heart was intent upon her roses.
Because she was aware that the House would soon be taken away from her ”children” she strove mightily to make these last days in it the most wonderful days in the garden of their lives. She never let them see that she feared. Just to hear her when she came home in the late afternoon was like listening to a symphony of inspiration. It began at the bas.e.m.e.nt door. How she braced herself for it! How she advanced, head up, lips smiling!
A word to Janet, grumbling over her cleaning; a quick grasp of Molly's warm hand--Molly was her hold on life in those discouraging days!
Molly, G.o.d bless her, would never admit defeat! Who fought out her part in the battle! She made their slender funds nourish their hungry bodies and she took nothing from Felicia but gave herself as royally as her little lady poured out herself to the others.
There was nothing sanctimonious about Felicia's handling of them. Like the old woman in the shoe, she scolded them ”roundly.” The Sculptor Girl still laughs over a never-to-be-forgotten-day, when Felice drifted into the nursery, her arms outstretched in droll swimming motions.
”Dulcie Dierckx! How dare you let me find you weeping again! When Pandora is almost here! I do declare you'll have to learn to swim and so will all of us if you're going to drip tears regularly, every day at five thirty--Molly says you're only hungry, n.o.body else is snivelling all over the place--”
”No, the lawyer c-c-cusses--” sobbed Dulcie.
”Then learn to cuss!” admonished Felice, but her eyes twinkled and the emotional Sculptor Girl's eyes twinkled back through her tears--all of them were for Felice, if that despotic person had only known it. For the young lawyer had been upstairs pouring out his despondent feelings on Dulcie,
”She has just about eight days more before she'll be dumped in the gutter, for there's no possible way out--”
A limp lot they were in the late afternoon, after they'd struggled all day with their unruly Muses and Pegasuses!
”Wouldn't it be droll,” Felice asked Molly one day, ”if I came home too tired some night and mixed them all up! And told the Inventor I thought his feeling was poetic and told Dulcie that she was getting a wonderful color into her work and talked about soul to the Cartoonist!” Sometimes it seemed to her that of all of them the Architect, with his head bent over his drawings under his evening lamp, typified the hopelessness of the whole scheme, as he wrought so painstakingly at his detailed drawings for the re-construction of the house, drawings that couldn't possibly ever be used! From some absurd fragment he would dreamily reconstruct--his adventures filled the house with nervous laughter.
As on the night when he discovered, high above the doorway in the bare old drawing-room, an ornate bit of copper grating that had escaped the clutches of the dirty filthy heathen. Most of the quaint old hot-tair registers--they had been wonderful bronze things--had been removed and ugly modern ones that did not fit had been subst.i.tuted. But this one grating--a delightful oval affair whereon chubby Vestal Virgins lifted delicate torches, had remained intact. The reason was plain enough, it was almost impossible to dislodge it. Even with the lawyer and the Cartoonist to help him, the enthusiastic Architect, balanced dangerously on one of Janet's ladders, could scarcely pry it loose. It was just after dinner. It had rained during the day so that the little garden was too damp for the evening and the whole household lingered idly in the bare drawing-room to tease the Architect. When the register was finally loosened, showers of ancient dust descended. The room echoed as with one mighty sneeze. Janet shrieked her dismay.
”Now look at the du-urt!” she wailed, ”It's fairly in loomps and choonks!”
The Cartoonist stopped with an heroic sneeze to lift one of the ”choonks.” He dusted the bit of metal and bowed before Felicia.
”Here is the key to the secret chamber--” but Felicia instead of playing back with some mocking pretense as she usually did when any of them made melodramatic speeches to her, clasped her hands.