It was a strange throw of Chance that tossed Ann Barnes into the heart of the Bryce family—or rather into its midst, for it seemed to Ann that there wasn’t any heart to the family. The first weeks she spent at The Beeches were positively bewildering.
She was the eldest daughter of a small-town lawyer, in Vermont. There were five younger children, and after Ann’s graduation at the State University, she set forth to make fame and fortune, with the ultimate object of rescuing her father and mother from the financial anxieties which had always beset them.
She was just an average healthy, fine American girl brought up in a normal, small-town American family. As the eldest, she had been her mother’s assistant. She had served her apprenticeship in cooking, nursing babies, patching small clothes, turning old things around and upside down, in order to make them over. She could market wisely, she could “manage” on little.
So much for her practical training. She knew all the inconveniences and anxieties of an insufficient and variable income. But she also knew the unselfishness, the affectionate give-and-take of a big family. She knew what miracles the loving patience of her mother daily performed. She knew the selflessness of her father, whichkept him at the treadmill of his profession that his children might have an education, might have their chance. Hospitality, kindness, love; these were of the very fibre of Ann’s being.
It was part of the trick Fate played on her that Wally’s offer had come to her the first week she was in New York, when the terror of the Big Town had just laid hold of her. New York, contemplated from Vermont, was the city of all opportunity; but New York, face to face, with a financial reserve of fifty dollars, was a very different matter.
Isabelle had amazed and interested her, and Wally had offered her what seemed a fabulous salary. No wonder she had seized the opportunity, with happy plans of sending the first check home, intact. But daily for the first week, amidst the undreamed-of luxuries of The Beeches she felt that she must run away, back to the things she knew and understood. And yet every day brought her evidences of Isabelle’s need of her, and Ann’s intrinsic sense of fairness made her feel that somebody ought to stand by the child.
Her first interview with Mrs. Bryce did not occur until the second day after her arrival. She waited to be summoned all of the first day, but heard nothing, saw nothing of her new employer. The second day she sent word asking for a conference. She was given an audience while Mrs. Bryce’s maid was dressing her to go out to lunch. She nodded casually to Ann.
“You wanted to see me?”
“Yes; I—I thought we would better talk over your plans for Isabelle.”
“I haven’t any plans for her. My only desire is to keep her out of the way.”
“But I don’t know what she is permitted to do,” Ann began.
“She is permitted to do anything she wants to,” laughed Mrs. Bryce.
“But that isn’t good for her”—earnestly.
Mrs. Bryce’s glance at the girl was full of scornful amusement.
“No, but it’s good for the rest of us. We can’t live in the house with her otherwise.”
Ann stared. She did not know how to cope with this kind of woman. Mrs. Bryce made her feel a clumsy fool, a sort of country bumpkin.
“This isn’t my job anyway, it’s Wally’s. He is guiding Isabelle’s destiny this summer. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Yes, but I thought the child’s mother would naturally want to say——” blundered Ann.
“Well, her mother doesn’t. Do anything you can to make her less of a nuisance, that’s my only advice.”
It was clear that the interview was ended, so Ann rose. With glowing appeal Mrs. Bryce turned her pretty face, with its sudden smile, upon the girl.
“Nice, kind Miss Barnes, don’t bother me about Isabelle, will you? She bores me to death.”
Ann got out of the room somehow. She felt cold shivers down her spine, as if she had touched something revolting. She thought ofhermother, and Jinny, the little sister nearest Isabelle’s age. She was so homesick for them, she just thought she would die. She went to the nursery where she had left Isabelle, and, as she entered, the child was shaking hands with an imaginary guest, saying in perfect imitation of her mother’s manner: “Oh, howdye do, Mrs. Page?”
“Dorothy and Reginald and I are having a bridge party,” she explained.
But Ann didn’t listen. She just picked Isabelle up in her arms, and hugged her tight, kissing her over and over again.
“You poor baby—you poor little mite!” she said over and over.
But after the first shock of surprise, Isabelle rebelled.
“Don’t! Put me down! I don’t like to be kissed!” she cried.
Ann set her down and knelt before her.
“Why don’t you like to be kissed?” she demanded.
“Because”—defiantly.
“Isabelle, have you ever been rocked and sung to and tucked into bed at night?”
Isabelle shook her head, her big eyes fixed on Ann’s face, so full of emotion.
“Did you ever have anybody tickle you awake, in the morning, and kiss you until you laughed?”
The child shook her head again.
“It’s a shame!” cried Ann. “Why Jinny gets kissed a hundred times a day by everybody.”
“Who’s Jinny?”
“My little sister, who is your age.”
“Where is she?”
“In my home, up in Vermont.”
“What does she do?”
“Sit down, and I’ll tell you about her.”
Isabelle promptly sat down on the floor beside Ann.
“In the morning, after breakfast, she picks up the papers and school books and toys and things the children leave around——”
“What children?”
“My other brothers and sisters. There’s Walter and Helen and Tommy and Barbara, but Jinny is our baby. When she gets things picked up she dusts the bottoms of the chairs and the legs of the tables. Then she helps mother make the beds. She can beat up the pillows and tuck the sheets neatly.”
“Isn’t there any chambermaid?”
“No. Then she studies her letters. She almost knows them. She goes to market with mother, and then she plays in the yard until dinner.”
“Max doesn’t go to market.”
Ann ignored that.
“Then the children troop in to dinner, from school. Such a scramble, such a wrestling, and shouting, and face washing! You ought to hear it.”
“But it’slunchat noon,” corrected Isabelle.
“No; we have dinner.”
“What do you have for dinner?”
“Boiled beef and potatoes, bread and butter and jam, and a pudding. Then the older ones tramp off to school again and Jinny takes her nap.”
“I hate naps.”
“Jinny doesn’t. She likes them. She knows they make her strong and sweet-tempered and pretty.”
“Would naps make me pretty?”
“I think so. Everybody is pretty who has pink cheeks, and a kind expression, don’t you think so?”
“Max hasn’t a kind expression; she’s cross”—quickly.
“But she has lovely skin, all pink and white.”
“I think you’re prettier than Max. Then what does Jinny do next?”
So the story went on with elaborate detail, until every waking moment of Jinny’s day was accounted for. It was absorbing to Isabelle, and it was a satisfaction for Ann to have this outlet for her homesickness. So it began, but it grew to be a significant make-believe, for as the days went by, she discovered that Isabelle could be absolutely ruled by her imagination. The new game was called “Playing Jinny.” She began to dust the nursery chairs and to pick up toys and playthings. She demanded lessons in letters. Any misdemeanour that was met with the remark, “Of course, Jinny would never do that,” was never repeated.
Day after day she demanded the story again, and daily Ann added to the picture of her mother, always at the call of her children, of her father, reading aloud on Friday nights, as a special treat, while they all sat round the fire in the shabby old living room.
She described how they all worked and saved to buy Christmas presents for one another; how happy they were over simple gifts, even a red lead pencil. How they hid the presents all over the house and had a “hunt” onChristmas morning, instead of having a tree. The story went on and on, until Isabelle actually lived in the circle of the Barnes family.
But one unfortunate day, Isabelle strayed into her mother’s room, determined upon experiment.
“Max, will you take me to market with you?” she inquired.
“I don’t go to market, silly; the housekeeper markets.”
“Why don’t you tuck me in, and kiss me good-night?” the child continued, her eyes fixed on her mother’s startled face.
“I’m never here when you go to bed,” defended Mrs. Bryce. “What is all this? I thought you didn’t like to be kissed.”
“I wish you’d have six children,” Isabelle sighed.
“Good heavens! Isabelle, don’t be silly!”
So Isabelle gave it up. She realized that something was lacking. She sought out Miss Barnes with the problem.
“Why don’t Max and Wally do like father and mother Barnes?”
“Well,” Ann evaded, “it is different, you see. Your father and mother are rich, and mine are poor. Your parents have lots to do—golf and bridge and parties—and father and mother Barnes have only their children to interest them. They’re just regular parents,” she added, lamely.
“But I want some regular parents,” replied Isabelle.
Ann was nonplussed.
“We can’t all have them, honey,” she said. “Jinny would like lots of things you have—a pony, and toys, and pretty clothes.”
“She can have mine.”
“She has to do many things you would not like to do.”
“I don’t care. I’d do them.”
“But you can’t change your parents. God gives them to you, and you have to keep them,” she laughed.
“Then why didn’t God give me regular parents?”
Ann hastily diverted the youngster’s thoughts into other channels, but she came back to it again and yet again—her desire for “regular parents.”
One of the habits acquired from Jinny was a daily nap. She religiously put herself to bed, after luncheon, and each day upon rising she inspected herself in the glass to see if she was growing prettier.
“I don’t see that it helps much,” she said frequently.
But Ann encouraged her to persevere, partly because she felt that the highly strung child needed the rest, and partly because it was Ann’s only breathing space in the twenty-four hours. Usually she went for a walk, carrying a book under her arm.
One day as she started off on such a ramble Mrs. Bryce sent for her.
“Miss Barnes, would you do me a favour? The dry-cleaner in Rockville has a lace gown of mine which I want to wear this afternoon, when some people are coming to tea. Would you motor over and get it? You could take the imp with you.”
“Isabelle is asleep just now.”
“Go before she wakes up, then.”
“Could one of the maids look after her, if she wakes?”
“Yes, of course. I shall be so obliged.”
So Ann set forth in the motor, glad of a free hour or two in the open. She enjoyed it to the full, and although it took longer than she had anticipated, she carried the gown to Mrs. Bryce’s door at five.
“So much obliged,” said that lady, sweetly.
The nursery was empty, so were the bedrooms. Ann asked the maids where Isabelle was. No one had seen her. She went out into the grounds and to all her favourite haunts, but no Isabelle. Then, thoroughly alarmed, she went to Mrs. Bryce’s door again.
“Mrs. Bryce, did you send a maid to look after Isabelle?”
“Oh, no, I forgot it”—in an annoyed tone.
“I can’t find her.”
“Can’t find her? Oh, she must be somewhere,”—absently.
“But I have looked everywhere. No one saw her go out. I have been gone over two hours, you know.”
Something of Ann’s excitement affected Mrs. Bryce.
“Oh, she couldn’t get away far. Kate,” she called to a maid in the dressing room, “did you see Isabelle?”
“I saw her just after Miss Barnes left,” said the girl. “She had on her best hat and coat, and I sez to her: ‘Where ye goin?’ an’ she sez to me: ‘I’m goin’ to look for some reg’lar parunts’ an’ she went out the side door. I thought somebody was lookin’ after her.”
“Oh, Mrs. Bryce, she’s run away!” cried Ann.
“Wouldn’t you know she’d do it on a day when I was having a special tea!” she blazed.
“Oh!” said Ann, looking the other woman straight in the eyes, and Mrs. Bryce knew that this girl despised her. Not that it mattered, but it was annoying at the moment.
“Don’t stand there talking. Get the chauffeur and tell him to go look for her,” she ordered, turning to receive the lace gown that the maid held over her head.
Ann ran out of the room, and down the stairs. She started for the beach where they went swimming. Henry the chauffeur passed her, calling out that he was going to the neighbours to inquire. Ann turned back to go to the gardener’s lodge and find out the whereabouts of Patsy. As she ran she sobbed to herself, at the thought of the forlorn little figure in its best hat and coat, setting out on a crusade to find “regular parents!”
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Mrs. Bryce wore the white lace gown, and had her tea. Wally commandeered all the servants except the cook and the butler to help in the search for Isabelle. He and the chauffeur and Ann conducted scouting parties in all directions.
“Where’s Wally, Max?” inquired Mrs. Page.
“He’s dashing around somewhere looking for Isabelle. She’s lost.”
“Lost? But where is the jewel who looks after her? Wally told me yards about her.”
“I sent her on an errand, and Isabelle got away. She can’t have gone far.”
“Do you share Wally’s enthusiasm over the new governess?”
“I do not,” replied Mrs. Bryce, adding, “Wally has become a passionate parent.”
“Whatever started him?”
“Idid, worse luck! You know how all the useless men in the world dote on telling a woman about her duties? Now Wally’s only job is to invest money in the wrong things, but he is full of ideas about being a mother.”
There was general mirth at this point, on the part of the guests.
“I was so moved by his remarks that I dumped my cares upon him for the summer. He is outrageously superior about himself as parent.Hehas found the perfect governess,hediscovers that our offspring has a brain; you should hear him go on.”
“I have,” protested Mrs. Page. “He used to make love to me, but now he tells me his domestic problems.”
“He has the entire house upset now, because she has run off, but when he finds her, he won’t have backbone enough to spank her,” laughed Mrs. Wally.
“It always amuses me how parents agonize over the lost child, and spank it when it’s found,” said Martin Christiansen, the guest of honour at the tea.
“Not being a parent you don’t realize that there is a large, well-defined body of parentisms. We all say the same things, do the same things to children, instinctively and without thought,” Mrs. Page assured him.
“Puts you at such a disadvantage with your child, for the youngster thinks freshly, doesn’t it, Mrs. Bryce?”
“I know mine thinks freshly—she’s a brat! I keep out of her way, myself,” remarked his hostess.
Presently dusk fell and still no signs of the child. Wally came back to telephone the police stations of the towns near them. He barely glanced at the laughing group on his terrace, but Mrs. Page spied him, and came to call out:
“Found her yet, Wally?”
“No.”
“Better come have your tea, Wally,” Mrs. Bryce suggested.
“Damn,” said Wally, under his breath, as he hurried into the house without any reply.
“Had we not better go? Aren’t you anxious, Mrs. Bryce?” inquired Christiansen.
“Oh, no; she’ll turn up.”
“Nothing will happen to her, she’s too smart,” commented Mrs. Page.
They took their departure shortly. Mrs. Bryce ordered the cook to hold back dinner. Then she let her vexation grow. It was outrageous that this little pest should upset things so completely. She had been especially anxious to impress this Mr. Christiansen, whom she had recently met. He was a distinguishedlittérateurand critic, as well as a stunning giant of a man. The white lace gown had been entirely for his benefit. And yet because of Isabelle he had been critical of her. Man-like he had convictions about woman’s job. He probably thought she should have been running around the country, in hysterics, looking for her chee-ild.
At nine o’clock she heard the motor come to the door. She went into the hall. Ann got out first and helped Wally. He was carrying the heroine—asleep, in the utter relaxation of tired babyhood. She was dirty, and her best hat dangled from its elastic, crushed and dusty.
“Well,” remarked Mrs. Bryce, “where was she?”
“I’ll take her up to the bedroom, Miss Barnes,” Wally said, and he started off.
“Really, Wally, Miss Barnes can certainly manage to get her to bed,” protested Mrs. Bryce.
“She’s rather heavy. I’ll just——”
“Put her down and let her walk then. I’ve waited for my dinner as long as I intend to.”
Wally went on upstairs with his burden, and as Ann passed Mrs. Bryce her scorn and hatred of that lace-clad lady was as obvious as a spoken word. Mrs. Bryce went to the table and ordered her dinner. When Wally joined her he looked “all in.”
“I suppose you don’t care whether she gets killed or not.”
“Well, but she didn’t get killed, so I don’t have to excite myself, do I?”
“You might show a little decent feeling before Miss Barnes.”
“I don’t have to please Miss Barnes—or any of my servants, if it comes to that.”
“You’re a brute, Max!”
“If you’re going to be tiresome, I’ll finish my dinner upstairs,” she replied. “Heaven knows, if I’d had any idea you would be such a bore about her, I’d never have turned her over to you.”
“Do you know why she ran away? She went to find some ‘regular parents’—so she said.”
“We don’t suit then?” Mrs. Bryce laughed crisply.
“The poor little devil walked and walked, and when she was too tired to go any farther she asked a milk wagon driver to give her a lift, so she got away over to Rockville.”
“Where did she get this idea about parents?”
“Miss Barnes explained to me on the way home, that she and Isabelle have a game called ‘Playing Jinny.’ Jinny is Miss Barnes’s little sister and Isabelle pretends that she lives in the Barnes family.”
“So, it is your paragon who has set her against her own parents.”
“No, she didn’t mean to do that. She says she had no idea that the child would take it seriously and start off to find the Barnes home.”
“Do you think it desirable to have your child in the sole charge of a woman who poisons her mind against you and me?”
“But she doesn’t do that, Max. Isabelle adores her. It was just a game, I tell you.”
“Soshesays.”
On the way to the library, after dinner, they came upon Ann in the hall.
“May I speak to you, Miss Barnes?” Max inquired coolly.
“Certainly,” the girl replied, and followed them into the room beyond.
“Just what is it that you have been telling Isabelle, which sets her off on this ridiculous jaunt?” demanded Mrs. Bryce, insolently.
“I told her about my home, and my little sister, who is her age. She started off to find her,” answered Ann, simply.
“Do you think it is a part of your duty to set her against her parents?”
“I have never discussed her parents with her.”
“I’m sure Miss Barnes isn’t to blame, Max,” put in Wally.
“I think she is.” Mrs. Bryce cut him off. “You may take the noon train to town to-morrow, Miss Barnes.”
“Oh, I say, Max!” protested Wally.
“It’s all right, Mr. Bryce,” Ann said. “I hate to leave Isabelle, but what can I do to help her? She’s just doomed!”
“Doomed to live with us, Wally,” laughed Mrs. Bryce.
“Yes, doomed to live with you,” the girl replied. “To get along without help, or love. To see her mother occasionally—a strange woman in the house. What right have you and your crowd to have children?” she demanded, hotly.
“Such impudence!” burst out Mrs. Bryce.
“I’ve never known any one like you before, and you fill me with horror!” Ann retorted.
“This may amuse you, Wally, but it doesn’t me,” remarked Mrs. Bryce, walking out of the room.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Bryce; I didn’t mean to say all that. I am so tired and excited from hunting Isabelle, and it seemed so terrible to me that she didn’t care about her own baby being lost, that I just burst out.”
“I know how overstrained you are, but of course, under the circumstances you will see——” he answered miserably.
“Oh, I couldn’t stay in the house another minute.”
“Mrs. Bryce is very self-contained, she’s not excitable as you and I are,” he tried to explain.
“I hate to leave Isabelle. Oh, Mr. Bryce, try to look after her a little, try to love her a little, she does need it so!”
The next day as she stepped to the platform of the train the chauffeur handed her a letter from Wally. There was an enclosure of two hundred dollars, which he beggedshe would accept as a present from Isabelle. He thanked her and regretted the necessity of her going.
So Ann passed out of Isabelle’s life, mourned and lamented for months by the child. She represented the only tenderness, the only understanding and sympathy that came into Isabelle’s childhood. The little belated tendrils of affection she had put forth toward her world, under Ann’s warm influence, shrivelled and died. Her wits against them all, that was the motto she decided upon, in the bitter wisdom of her four brief years.
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During the years that followed many were the governesses set up by Mrs. Bryce to be promptly knocked down, as it were, by Isabelle. They would either depart of their own accord, or they would be sent flying by the irate Mrs. Bryce after some escapade of her incorrigible offspring.
“She’ll end in a reform school!” she remarked to Wally one day, upon the dismissal of the latest one.
He sought out his daughter and laboured with her.
“Look here, kid, how many governesses have you had lately?”
“Oodles of ’em.”
“But what do you do to them?”
“Get rid of ’em, they’re no good. Can’t you get Max to let me have Ann again?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“I won’t have any of these she gets me—old snoops!”
“She does the best she can,” Wally defended.
“She does not. She doesn’t even look at ’em, just telephones for one to be sent out. Let’s you and me go pick out another one, Wally.”
“I’m sorry, but your mother won’t stand for it. Ann gave her a piece of her mind before she left, and Max blames me for it.”
“If she’d get Ann, I’d be so good she’d never have to change again.”
“Why don’t you tell her that?”
“I did. It makes her mad. You tell her, Wally.”
“She gets mad at me, too.”
“If you get mad back and yell at her, she stops. That’s what I do,” she advised him.
“Look here, it would be a lot more comfortable for you to put up with some woman, even if you don’t like her. You always have to get used to a new one.”
“I don’t. They have to get used to me,” the imp replied. “Where you going?” she added.
“I’m going to exercise Nero.”
“Take me.”
“Can’t look after you and that horse, too.”
“I’m not a baby,” she scorned him. “Tell them to bring the pony round, Wally.”
Later when she threw her breeched leg over her horse, and waited for Wally to mount, he exclaimed:
“Lord, I wish you’d been a boy!”
“So do I.”
They started off. She had discarded the old Shetland pony as too childish, and demanded a real steed. So Wally had given her a small Peruvian horse, delicately made and fleet of foot. She rode him like a leaf on the wind. She jumped hedges and fences and ditches; she did circus tricks, and finally nagged Wally’s Nero into a race.
“You’re some rider, Isabelle,” he said, on the way home.
“You bet I am!” she replied.
At the door Matthews, the butler, announced that the new governess had arrived.
“Damn it!” ejaculated Isabelle.
Wally reproved her sharply, but she was inattentive.
“Let’s fire her, Wally, and you take care of me.”
“Would you like that?” he said, touched by this unusual mark of affection.
“Yes. You always do what I want you to,” replied his tactless child.
“I have other things to do than to look after a fresh little shrimp like you.”
The “new one” was a middle-aged English gentlewoman of the usual governess type. Isabelle knew the kind thoroughly. She had initiated whole companies of them into life at The Beeches. Miss Watts, this one was called. She was putting her things into bureau drawers, when Isabelle appeared at the door of the bathroom which joined their rooms.
“Is this Isabelle?” inquired the new victim.
The child nodded.
“How do you do? I am Miss Watts.”
“I know.”
“I hope we are going to be friends——”
“I never like governesses—only one.”
“Why did you like this one?” inquired Miss Watts.
She was so used to the lack of manners in the children she taught, that this one seemed no worse than usual.
“Because she was young and could swim and ride and tell me stories.”
“I’m too old to swim and ride, but I can tell stories.”
She went on with her unpacking.
“What kinds of stories?”
“All kinds. I know hundreds of stories. Can you read?”
“I know letters, and ‘cat’ and ‘rat,’ but I can’t read big books. Let’s hear you tell a story.”
“I will, with pleasure, when I finish here.”
“But I want it now.”
“It will take me only a little while.”
“But I won’t wait.”
Miss Watts became aware that this was the initial clash of arms.
“No? Well, don’t let me keep you then. Is that your room?”
“If you don’t do what I want, I’ll yell so everybody in the house will come to see what’s the matter.”
Miss Watts glanced at her and smiled.
“That will be interesting,” she said.
Whereupon Isabelle opened her mouth and emitted long, loud shrieks. Miss Watts continued counting handkerchiefs. The howls grew more artificial in quality, but louder in volume. Isabelle grew red in the face. This was hard work. After about three minutes of bedlam Miss Watts remarked:
“But where is the audience, Isabelle? I’m afraid you have cried ‘Wolf! Wolf!’ too often.”
Isabelle stopped long enough to shout:
“I didn’t cry ‘Wolf!’”
“No?” said Miss Watts, seating herself by the window. “I’ve finished now. Is your concert over?”
The child stared at her.
“Maybe you’d be interested in the story of the man who cried ‘Wolf! Wolf!’”
Isabelle smarted under a sense of defeat.
“I won’t have any stories now.”
“Very good. Of course, I only tell stories as a favour,” she added, pointedly.
The youngster went into her own room. Miss Watts heard her banging around in there. Presently she appeared again.
“Why did the man cry ‘Wolf! Wolf!’?” she demanded.
“Sit down, and I’ll tell you,” answered Miss Watts, pleasantly.
So the story was told, and the new relationship inaugurated which was to last for several years.
Miss Watts was a woman of considerable intellectual capacity, with a passion for books. She was ill-fitted for the sole charge of a five-year-old girl of Isabelle’s vitality, but her poise and sense of humour won the child’s respect. After that first experiment there were no more spasms of howling. Miss Watts never tried to sentimentalize their relationship. She recognized the child’s unusual quality, and her precocity. She was at present an unendurable human being, thanks to her bringing up. Her ideas and ideals were servant-made. If she could be brought to see herself as socially an outcast, because of her bad manners, Miss Watts knew it would effect a cure.
On her side, Isabelle found Miss Watts’s mind a storehouse of treasures. She told stories of all countries, and all times, and she told them well. The only punishment ever inflicted was the abolishment of the story hour, andthis was the only chastisement Isabelle had ever regarded as such. There was a marked improvement in her behaviour and the members of her household drew a long breath of relief.
Miss Watts piqued the girl’s interest in the study hours, and, as if by a miracle, she learned to read. The teacher found an extraordinary concentration of effort to acquire anything the girl desired. Promised the joy of finding stories for herself, the student applied herself and learned by magic. She was extremely proud of the new accomplishment, and would have read constantly if Miss Watts had not settled upon literary pursuits as the reward of virtue.
One of the by-products of the new ability was a tighter hold on her leadership of the children she played with. Everything she read suggested new and wonderful games. As originator and inventor she always played the leading rôles, assisted by the others.
Summer days provided uninterrupted opportunity for her talents. She turned the playhouse into a theatre, and organized a supporting company. Sometimes Miss Watts assisted with the scenario, sometimes Isabelle was sole author or adapter.
It was the year when she was eight, and just beginning to read Dickens, that she prepared a presentation of “A Tale of Two Cities.” She worked at it with great enthusiasm for fully a week. Then she appeared in her mother’s room.
“Max, can I have lemonade and cake for the audience this afternoon?”
“What audience?”
“At the Isabelle Theatre.”
“Who’s coming?”
“Everybody. Parents and relatives. I rode around to all the houses this morning and issued the invitations. They all accepted.”
“Why didn’t you consult me before you invited the neighbourhood in?”—hotly.
“I thought you’d kick about the refreshments.”
“If you ever do this again you will get no refreshments and I will send your friends home.”
“They’re yours too. Martin Christiansen said he would not miss it for a kingdom.”
“You call him Mr. Christiansen, when you speak of him, Miss Impudence. What do you intend to do to entertain all these people?”
“‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ by Charles Dickens.”
“In the playhouse?”
“Yes; it will be crowded, but people can sit on the floor.”
“You can’t ask people to sit on the floor in that stuffy box!”
“Well, I asked you to let me use the garage and you wouldn’t.”
“So that’s why you asked all these people.”
“That’s only one reason. Matthews and Henry can carry chairs to the garage this morning. We can move the stage our own selves. The play begins at two.”
“Hottest time in the day.”
“You don’t have to come.”
“Who’s in your show?”
“I am the star, and Tommy Page is Carton. He’s no good because he giggles, but Mr. Christiansen wouldn’t play it. I asked him first.”
Mrs. Bryce laughed.
“I suppose you could do with ice cream and cake.”
“We could”—promptly.
“What are you going to wear?”
“I have several costumes. I took your velvet opera coat for the rehearsal. Do you mind?”
“Mind? Certainly I mind. Don’t you dare touch anything in my closet.”
“All right,” replied her daughter, coolly; “Tommy brought over his mother’s best coat in case you were huffy.”
“I shall call Madge Page up this minute and tell her.”
“Very well, but if you do, I’ll announce before the curtain goes up, that because oftraitorsthere are no costumes.”
She saw that that shot took effect.
“You’d better let it alone, Max. I’ve got it all thought out,” she added.
“I’d like to spank you!” Max exploded.
At the door Isabelle turned.
“Don’t you care anything about ART?” she demanded.
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AS MRS. BRYCE and Wally came out from luncheon, they beheld the first consignment of friends and relatives, a motor car full from the Pages.
“We’ve come to the matineé,” laughed Mrs. Page.
“It’s ridiculous of you,” retorted her hostess.
“I would not have missed it for anything,” said Martin Christiansen.
“I hear she invited you to play Carton,” jeered Wally.
“I never was more flattered in my life. But I persuaded her that I was not the type.”
Other motors began to arrive with beaming parents, and excited children. The terrace was almost crowded when finally, after much delay, and trips to and from the house, Teddy Horton rushed into view, announcing through a megaphone that the doors of the Isabelle Theatre were open. Everybody strolled toward the garage and soon all the “stalls” were full.
Isabelle appeared before the sheets which served as curtain. She was pale, composed, and in deadly earnest.
“Fathers and mothers, and ladies and gentlemen,” she began, “we are going to give a play called ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ by Charles Dickens and me.”
She was undisturbed by their laughter and applause.
“We didn’t have time to print programmes, so I will tell you the characters: Mademoiselle Lucy Manet—Isabelle Bryce; Dr. Manet, her father—Margie Hunter; Madame La Farge—Isabelle Bryce; Mr. Lorry—Margie Hunter; Charles D’Arnay—Teddy Horton; Sidney Carton—Tommy Page. Manager—Isabelle Bryce.”
More applause.
“The first scene is An Inn. Mr. Lorry is waiting for Lucy Manet.”
She made a low bow, and walked off, followed by much hand clapping. Some time elapsed, and then by slow laborious jerks the sheets were parted, and Margie Hunter, a fat serious girl of nine, was discovered in her father’s overcoat and hat, pacing the floor. She rather overdid the pacing, so a strident voice prompted: “My Blood!” and yet again, and louder: “My Blood!”
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Lorry. Then in a deep chest tone, he inquired: “My Blood! Why doesn’t Mademoiselle Lucy Manet, my old client’s, child, appear?”
Enter Lucy Manet. She wears Mrs. Page’s best opera coat, which extracts a groan from the owner. Her bobbed brown hair is barely covered by the long yellow shaving curls which more or less crown her head. A Gainsborough hat of her mother’s threatens to submerge her countenance, and she carries a walking stick of Wally’s as a staff. But for all the ridiculous figure she cut, there was an earnestness and a sort of style to her entrance, that cut short the first outburst of laughter.
“Sir, are you Mr. Lorry?” she demanded.
“I am. I kiss your hand, Miss.”
“I have had a long trip in the stage coach. . . . Did you bring me to England when I was an orphan child?”
“Miss Manet, it was me, but you aren’t an orphan.”
She kneels.
“Quick, sir, the truth!” she cries.
“Your father is found. He is a wreckage in prison.”
Lucy Manet faints. Curtain.
Both actors were forced to take a curtain call after this. Isabelle manages to push fat Margie into the wings while she stays on, bowing, to announce:
“Margie Hunter is Dr. Manet this scene.”
The next scene discovers Margie Hunter, in a long beard, cobbling a shoe, hastily contributed by Tommy Page at the last moment. A dramatic and tender meeting between father and child was played in a tense key, only slightly marred by the frequent loss of Father Manet’s hirsute appendage.
The scene changed suddenly and unexpectedly to the court room in England where D’Arnay appears as prisoner. Margie Hunter played the judge. Teddy Horton as D’Arnay was so overcome with stage fright that Isabelle had to tell him all his lines. However, when it came to Lucy Manet’s testimony the scene lifted. At the climax, just when Sidney Carton was to make his dramatic entrance into the story, it was discovered that Tommy had not his shoe. In the quick change, it had been left in the corner of Manet’s garret. The action was held up while it was restored to him, but he put it on so hastily that he lost it once or twice during the scene. It kept his mind off his lines, rather. The moment came when thestriking resemblance between D’Arnay and Carton is pointed out by Lucy. Tommy Page—plump, short, red-haired, with freckles—and Teddy Horton—tall, gangling, half a head taller than his double—stood side by side facing the audience.
Up to this moment a certain restraint had marked that body, but at this sight they went into uncontrolled spasms of delight. Martin Christiansen, dramatic critic, was seen to wipe tears of joy from his cheeks. The actors were spurred to renewed efforts.
Carton declared his eternal devotion to Lucy, in words that were scarcely Dickensian.
“I like you, Lucy; you’re all right. I’ll stick to you for ever,” he improvised frantically.
The marriage scene between Lucy and D’Arnay ran something like this. D’Arnay, very accurate in his lines, remarks to Dr. Manet:
“Dr. Manet, I love your daughter—fondly, dearly. You loved once yourself; let your old love speak for me!”
Dr. Manet’s lines escaped him, so he replied informally:
“Oh—all right.”
Whereupon the bridal procession entered, with Isabelle as climax, in her mother’s best tulle scarf as a veil.
The scene once more shifted to Paris. D’Arnay was arrested, and resisted. It took the entire company to overpower and drag him forth to the Bastille.
A bit of unequalled histrionism followed in which Isabelle entered as Lucy, with little Nancy Holt as her child. She proceeded to impersonate both that heroine and Madame La Farge. It was simpler than it sounds.As Lucy she still wore the wedding veil, as Madame La Farge she snatched off the veil, wrapped a fur boa around her, seized her mother’s knitting, and by leaping from one side of the stage to the other, by using now a high voice now a low one, the illusion was perfect. The chee-ild was rather roughly pushed about during the scene, which was highly emotional.
“Be merciful to my husband for the sake of my chee-ild,” cried Lucy, passionately, pushing Nancy forward.
“Never!” growled Madame La Farge, pushing Nancy back.
“Don’t, Isabelle, you hurt,” objected Nancy, but quailed into silence at Isabelle’s terrible look.
The audience was almost hysterical.
The part where Carton rescues D’Arnay and changes places with him, important climax though it is in the book, was omitted by the dramatist, because it had no opportunity for Isabelle. D’Arnay arrived in Carton’s clothes, many inches too small for him, and explained to Lucy what had occurred. So she and her child and her husband escape.
The curtains were closed now, and the audience stirred as if to rise. Isabelle rushed forth.
“Sit still,” she commanded, “it isn’t over yet.”
There was a long wait, and much hammering back on the stage. Then the curtains parted again on the big realistic moment of the drama. Suspended at back was what at first glance looked to be a wooden window frame. It was suspended from above by ropes, which disappeared over the gallery which ran around the garage. Under thisframe was a wooden saw-horse, and beneath that a pail. Only a look sufficed to show that this wasLa Belle Dame sans Merci, the guillotine.
A ragged rabble appeared at back, shouting and shaking fists. Then—led forward by D’Arnay and the able Margie who had been Dr. Manet, Lorry, and the Judge—came the blind-folded figure of the hero, Carton. They led him to the foot of that terrible machine of destruction, and after several vain promptings from the gallery above, Carton cried in a loud, manly voice:
“It’s a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to, than I have ever known.”
Then he laid his noble head on the saw horse, andbing!went the window frame down on his neck.
“Gosh!” yelled Carton, just as it struck; and then no more.
“Good Lord! Tommy!” cried his mother excitedly from the audience. “I think she’s killed him.”
“He’s all right,” cried Isabelle from the gallery. “There wasn’t any knife in it—it couldn’t hurt him much, unless it just broke his neck.”
Carton sat up and lifted a red and angry face toward her.
“It just about did break my neck, you big nut!” he cried, feeling himself, gently. “I told you that darned thing wouldn’t work.”
“Draw the curtain,” hissed Isabelle fiercely, sensing that the shouts of the audience were too abandoned to be complimentary.
The curtains were hitched shut, and she looked over the balustrade on to the group below. Wally was beating Christiansen on the back, and Max was laughing hysterically. Mrs. Page, whose stupid maternal plans had nearly ruined the climax, was now panting for breath.
Isabelle, even while she was delighted with their applause, despised them. Had they no feeling for the noble tragedy of Carton? Of course, Tommy Page, the fool——just then she caught Martin Christiansen’s eye. He held up his hands to her, clapping, and bowing and throwing kisses. He rushed to the garden, and came back with a huge sunflower which he tossed to her, calling: “Author!”
After many and prolonged calls, Isabelle came modestly forth.
“Thank you,” she said. “I think Mr. Charles Dickens is dead; if he is, I will thank you for him.”
“Company! Company!” shouted the parents and relatives. Isabelle felt this to be bad discipline for the actors, but after a moment’s hesitation, she led them all forth.
Martin Christiansen was the first to reach her side. With a low bow he indicated the sunflower which she carried.
“My flower!” he murmured tenderly. “Isabelle, I’ve seen them all, Bernhardt, Duse, Fiske, but I’ve never seen any acting that could be compared with yours!”
It was that supreme moment which made up to Isabelle for everything else. She knew then the joy of appreciation—knew that Martin Christiansen was a finer soul, and akin unto her own!
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Isabelle’s début as dramatist and actress was much discussed and laughed over in the colony. Her pranks had long been a favourite topic, but this last one marked her as a real personality.
“Isabelle,” Martin Christiansen said to her, a day or so after the performance, “you gave me so much pleasure with your interpretation of Mr. Dickens’s work, that I want to do something for your pleasure.”
“Do you?” said Isabelle, enthusiastically.
“Theatrical stars are so temperamental, I scarcely know what to suggest. What does a leading lady and producer like to do in her moments of idle ease?”
It was a great opportunity, and Isabelle considered it at length.
“I should like to go bathing on the club beach, and have lunch afterwards on the club porch.”
“Most reasonable of Leading Ladies, what day would suit you best?”
“To-morrow”—promptly.
“Good. Shall we say at eleven? I will give myself the honour of coming for you.”
“You ask Max to let me go, will you?”
“With pleasure. Shall we ask the other members of your company, too? Does a star permit the company to eat below the salt?”
“Oh no, don’t let’s have them—just you and me.”
“Most flattering. I would prefer that.”
“You won’t ask the Wallys?”
“You refer to your parents?”
She nodded.
“This is your party—you may ask the guests,” he laughed.
So it was decided, and Christiansen broke the news to her mother.
“I think she should have a chaperon. You might ask me.”
“She was very explicit that the party was to be a tête-à-tête.”
“She’d never ask me,” laughed her mother.
“Aren’t you friendly?”—curiously.
“Oh, not at all.”
The next morning Max honoured Miss Watts and Isabelle with an unexpected call.
“What is she going to wear, Miss Watts?” she inquired.
“I’m going to wear my riding clothes,” announced Isabelle.
“How ridiculous! You’re going in a motor, not on a horse.”
“I don’t care. I look better in my riding clothes.”
“You’ll put on a white organdie frock and a big hat.”
“I won’t! I hate those girl-things! They look silly on me.”
“All children of your age wear white dresses and pink sashes, Isabelle,” interpolated Miss Watts.
“Well, I’m not a pink-sash child!” quoth Isabelle, with one of her flashes of insight.
“Oh, well, Miss Watts, let her go in her riding boots. If she wants to make a laughing-stock of herself, let her! Poor Mr. Christiansen will be sorry he ever asked her!” said Mrs. Bryce.
“Very well. I’ll wear a white linen dress, with a black belt, and my black hat,” announced the girl.
“Chaste, but not gaudy,” laughed her mother, as she sauntered from the room.
When she was finally dressed Isabelle walked to a long mirror and surveyed herself at length. Her slim, pretty legs in their black silk stockings caught her eye.
“Don’t you think I have nice legs?” she inquired of Miss Watts.
“Um—rather. They are serviceable at least.”
The party was a marked success. A great many people were bathing, which always made it exciting. They went out to the raft and Christiansen and some other men took turns in throwing her off. It was perfect for Isabelle. Then, afterward, all the tables were full on the club veranda, when Mr. Christiansen led his guest to a two-chair table, marked “reserved.” Everybody smiled and nodded at them. She saw Wally and Max cross the room grinning at her. But she bore herself with great dignity, and it seemed to her that life heldnothing more, when Christiansen seated her. There was a tiny, old-fashioned bouquet at her plate.
“Is this for me?” she inquired.
“Yes. My offering on the day of your triumph was so inadequate, I wanted to do better to-day. By the way, I ordered the lunch. I trust you do not mind.”
“Oh, no. That’s all right,” she replied graciously.
“It seems to me you are looking very fine to-day.”
She looked at him gravely.
“I had an awful time about my clothes,” she confessed. “Max wanted me to wear a party dress and a sweety hat——”
“What is a sweety hat?” he inquired with interest.
“Oh, you know the kind—floppy, with cherries on it, and everybody says: ‘Oh, isn’t she sweet?’”
Her host smiled.
“You object to being thought sweet?”
“Yes. I’m not that kind of a child.”
“What kind of a child are you, Isabelle?”
“I’m plain, but I’ve got a great line of talk,” was her unexpected answer.
“A witty tongue is worth all the pretty faces in the world,” laughed Christiansen. “But I wouldn’t call you so plain.”
“I look very well in my riding clothes.”
“Do you?”
“Have you seen me in them?”
“No, I regret to say.”
“Well, you must.”
“Thank you. I take it that you did not accept your mother’s advice upon your costume?”
“Oh, no. I never do. Parents have such silly ideas, don’t you think?”
“I suppose they do, poor things.”
“You have to have them, of course”—politely.
“In this badly arranged world,” he admitted.
“So many people are having babies this summer,” she remarked.
“Are they, indeed?”
“Oh, yes. The Hunters and the Reillys, both have them.”
“Do I know the Reillys?”
“He is the gardener at The Beeches. Patsy is my best friend.”
“Is he a member of your company?”
“Oh, yes. He was away when we did ‘The Tale of Two Cities.’ He speaks rather Irishly, but he’s a good actor.”
“Your leading man seemed to have a comedy talent.”
“Tommy Page? He’s a terrible fool, but we had to have him. There never are enough boys to go round for the parts.”
“So often happens in summer resorts,” he agreed. “Why not have a company of Amazons and disdain the weaker sex?”
“You mean all girls?”
“The Amazons were, you know.”
“They fuss so, and get mad. They always want to play the best parts. With boys, you can justsettlethem.”
“You nearly settled poor Tommy Page on the guillotine,” he laughed.
“He nearly spoiled everything, the poor coward. He couldn’t stand a little pain.”
“Peculiar to our sex, Isabelle; not Tommy’s fault, strictly speaking.”
“He’ll never get another good part,” she said firmly.
They were just finishing their ice cream, chatting amiably, when Wally came to their table.
“Hello,” he remarked.
Isabelle bowed.
“Hope I don’t interrupt?” he added.
“Not at all. Won’t you sit down?”
“No, thanks. Just ran over to say that we’ll take the kid off your hands after lunch.”
“Oh, don’t bother——”
“Certainly we will. The car is going back in ten minutes with Max, and she can go along.”
Isabelle could have cried with rage. As it was she swallowed hard, and when Christiansen said: “Is that agreeable to you, Isabelle?” she nodded assent, but the look she cast at Wally might have assassinated him. He, blissfully unaware of it, sauntered away.
“Don’t hurry. Wouldn’t you like some more ice cream?” her host suggested.
“Yes, thank you.”
She did not really want it, but it might serve to delay the hated departure. The car might go without her, and Christiansen would then take her home. She dawdled over the second ice cream, chatting feverishly to prevent his suspecting her plan. But the end came, as the end needs must, and on the veranda they found her mother waiting.
“If she has been eating all this time, you must be bankrupt,” she laughed as they joined her.
“Our conversation absorbed considerable time, didn’t it, Isabelle?”
“Yes”—gravely.
“Did you behave yourself?” inquired her mother.
“Perfectly,” Christiansen hastened to say.
“Well, make your manners and get into the car,” ordered her parent.
Christiansen leaned over her hand gallantly.
“Thank you for giving me so much pleasure,” he said in a confidential tone.
“Thank you. I loved it,” she whispered ardently.
On the way home her mother glanced at her.
“Have a good time?”
“You and Wally spoiled it!”—hotly.
“What did we do?”
“Treating me like a infunt!”
“Which you are,” retorted her mother.
Later, in talking it over with Miss Watts, Isabelle said:
“Mr. Christiansen is my ideal. He thinks he would not call me very plain,” she added. Then, “Miss Watts, what is an Amazon?”
“The Amazon is a river.”
“But he said a comp’ny of Amazons.”
“Oh, they were women warriors,” instructed the teacher, and expounded the subject at some length.
“What did they wear?” demanded Isabelle.
“We’ll look up some pictures of them and find out.”
“Riding clothes would do,” mused Isabelle.
“Nicely, I should say.”
The next day she organized the Isabelle Amazons. They were only four in number, counting Nancy Holt, who was under size, but they drilled and hunted and rode to battle in the wake of their peerless leader. They met imaginary foes. They challenged Tommy Page and Teddy Horton to mortal combat, and put them to flight. It was a wonderful game, and Isabelle thrilled to think that it was “her ideal” who had suggested it.
“When am I going to entertain Mr. Christiansen?” she asked her mother.
“Youentertain him?”
“Certainly. He had me to lunch, didn’t he?”
Mrs. Bryce laughed.
“I’m having a house party over the week end and he is coming.”
“This week end?”
“Yes. Your beau arrives on the noon train Saturday.”
“But I am spending the day with the Hunters Saturday,” the child protested.
“I can’t help that,” replied her parent.
“May I come down to dinner Saturday night?”
“Certainly not.”
“Can’t I come in with the cocktails, and stay till you go to the dining room?”
“Nobody wants you under foot.”
“He’s my friend just as much as he is yours!” blazed Isabelle.
“You can see him at tea.”
“With everybody around? I have something private to tell him.”
“What, pray?”
“About Amazons.”
“Well, we’ll not have Amazons with the cocktails, I can tell you that,” said her mother with finality.
Isabelle brooded over the matter until the end of the week. She tried to get out of the day with Margie Hunter, but Mrs. Bryce was glad to be rid of her and forced her to go. She ordered Miss Watts not to go after her until half past five, when tea would be safely over.
Isabelle composed a note of explanation and left it on the bureau in the room which Christiansen was to occupy.