CHAPTER IVTHE FAIRY FOUNDLING
In the heart of a man there are many chambers. Some of these chambers have locked doors and behind them the world may not penetrate. Dusty, discarded shrines are there with the idols chipped and broken; coffers rotted with money may lie scattered about; brittle bouquets of faded flowers; a coffin plate or two, or perhaps the more grisly husks of dead romances that arise during slumber and break out wailing, haunting the long, barren corridors of the subconscious mind and only laid by sunlight. But among these chambers somewhere is one sweet, clandestine room only unlocked with a golden key on a diamond ring, where warm and ruddy light floods out when the door is opened. Luxury awaits him within, but greater than luxury: the mistress of his soul, soft-armed, starry-eyed, radiant with love. Back over far years or few, when that mistress entered that heart-chamber and consented to remain imprisoned there forever, then was Everyman’s Amethyst Moment.
Man, like the caliphs of old, may possess a thousand wives. But his heart has one mistress only—forever.
There is another phase of this narrative which it is expedient to begin in order to make long preparation for Nathan’s Amethyst Moment. It starts in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, on a September afternoon twenty years in the past. Upon an iron settee at the edge of a Forest Park lily pond a woman sank to rest and to watch a group of shrieking children playing with the swans.
She was a middle-aged woman, tall, comely, deep-chested, one of those well-favored, high-caste matrons vaguely associated with sweeping, trailing, draping house gowns, with strings of jet and jade licking against her knees and anexotic perfume clinging about her personality like old rose or lavender.
This afternoon she was clothed in black, black walking dress, large black hat, black fur neckpiece, smooth black gloves. She was the widow of a high army officer, killed seven months before in the Philippines. Her name was Gracia Theddon and she lived—somehow—on the income from half a million dollars.
This woman’s face grew wistful as she watched the children. She wanted to call them about her. Then she realized that seven of the ten were clothed alike. The types were too varied to make them brothers and sisters. She was puzzled.
As she watched, one of the smallest youngsters poised on the edge of the water and almost fell forward. In that instant a little girl flashed from a near-by summer house and pulled the baby back from danger.
The child whose watchful eye and quick coördination of mind and body had effected this tiny rescue seized and held Gracia Theddon’s attention. She was slender and dark, the most delicately wrought little girl that had ever moved into Mrs. Theddon’s scheme of things. Her features were cut with the clearness of a cameo. She had strangely calm eyes, extraordinary eyes, even for a child.
The woman finally summoned a youngster, a precocious youngster of few illusions.
“Who’s that little girl, boy?” she asked. “The one with the pretty face and long black curls.”
“Whatcher wanner knowfer?”
Mrs. Theddon found a dime in the tiny bead bag at her girdle.
“Now tell me the little girl’s name and what you know about her.”
“Name’s Leggy—it’s short for sumpin’—Leeg—Leeg—sumpin’ like Leegar.”
“You mean Allegra?”
“Uh-huh!”
“And what’s her last name?”
“Ain’t got none. She didn’t have no fadder nor mudder like the rest of us. The fairies brought her. Leggy says so! Say, there ain’t no fairies, are there?”
“So that’s why you’re all dressed alike. You’re orphans.”Mrs. Theddon’s eyes went back to the little girl. “And who’s looking out for you?”
“Leggy is. We couldn’t come to the Park at all if it warn’t fer her. She’s a cuckoo, Leggy is. She says she saw Santa Claus once. Say, there ain’t no Santa Claus, is there?”
“I used to think so, little boy.”
“I arst Miss Howlan’ once. But she got mad and tol’ me to get the hell out and stop askin’ foolish questions, or she’d slap my mouth——”
“Who’s Miss Howland?”
“She runs the dump we live at. She’s a quince and can’t get married. Say, you’re rich, aincher? Is that a real bird on your hat?”
“And does this Miss Howland swear so before you children?”
“Huh, hell ain’t swearin’. I know lots o’ words worse’n hell. So’s Miss Howland. Gee, you oughta hear her rip when she gets mad. She says goddam an’——”
“Stop, boy, stop! I merely wish to know about that little girl. What’s the name of the Orphanage where you live?”
“The Corpses is Christened—or sumpin’ sounds like it.”
“You mean Corpus-Christi?”
“Uh-huh! Guess so!”
“And how long has that little girl been at the Corpus-Christi Orphanage?”
“Since ’fore the world was made, I guess—a nawful long time. She b’longs to Miss Howlan’.”
“Belongs to her!”
“Yeah! Miss Howlan’s fixed it so Leggy can’t be adopted. When people come and wanner kid, the first they allus grab is Leggy. So Miss Howlan’s hooked her up, and Leggy’ll have to stay to the place and be a orphan till she’s old and got grand-chillun. Miss Howlan’ said she done a good job when she hooked Leggy. I heard her tell Bridget; she cooks the stuff we eat and then eats it herself.”
“And you’re sure you never heard the little girl’s last name?”
“Say, wasser matter wicher? I said she ain’t got none, din’t I? She warn’t born like the rest of us. They found her sleepin’ on a haycock in a field. It was near some woodswhere the fairies stole out and left her. Say, what’s a haycock?”
“And how long ago was it they found her?”
“Gee, you’re thick, aincher? I said it was a nawful long time back, ’fore my fadder busted my mudder open, and then skipped so he wouldn’t have to go to jail, and they shoved me in the Corpses is Christened dump to be a orphan——”
The boy’s worldly wisdom disturbed Mrs. Theddon so painfully that she finally dismissed him in relief.
Then she called the Fairy Foundling.
The child approached with a dainty deference that won the rich woman instantly—if she had not been won from the first.
This was no laborer’s offspring.
Mrs. Theddon was almost minded to believe in fairies after all.
The following day a pair of handsome grays stopped before the Corpus-Christi Orphanage. Mrs. Theddon alighted from her carriage, instructed her coachman to wait and went up the broken steps to the grim front door.
The Orphanage was a mediocre double house in the poorer quarter of the city; only a battered sign tacked to the greenish clapboards indicated its character. Mrs. Theddon’s ring was answered by an angular female who believed in infant damnation, the prohibition issue and the curse of the idle rich. Her hair was drawn tightly from her square, sallow forehead, her shoulders were sharp, her face on a man would have created a perfect butler for the lower class motion pictures.
“I am Mrs. Gracia Theddon,” announced the first, “and I have called to see you about a certain child you have here—a little Allegra Something-or-other.”
“You mean you want to adopt her?”
“If it’s possible.”
“It isn’t possible! Allegra’s my own.”
“So I understand. But I want little Miss Allegra myself and I’m—well—I’m prepared to make it worth while to be reasonable.”
Thereat the Howland person thawed somewhat,—not much.
“Come in,” she conceded.
She led the way into a bare cheerless “office.” Mrs. Theddon sat down and raised her black veil.
“I saw the child in the Park yesterday. I talked with her. And when I got home last night—in bed—I realized—how very much I should like to have such a little girl. I have no children. My husband was killed last year in the Philippines.”
Miss Howland, it developed, was a “toe-tapper” and a Competent Person. Moreover, she had dealt with finicky patronesses of the Orphanage for years. She tapped her toe now, though her face maintained its wooden expression.
“So I understand, Mrs. Theddon. But you see—I also love Allegra—she is such a help to me about the place——”
“You don’t make that delicate little girl work!”
“No, no! Not work! Merely a few chores to give her a sense of responsibility—looking after the younger children and all that. They are an awful care at times, Mrs. Theddon—an awful care.”
Mrs. Theddon was duly solicitous. She knew the Howland type and how to “handle” it. Ten minutes were spent ingratiating herself into the superintendent’s sympathies and the Howland woman thawed.
“But what do you know about the child?” Mrs. Theddon asked.
“They found her in a hayfield over toward Ludlow ten years ago last summer. But no one reported a lost child. When the papers advertised her, no one came forward to identify or claim her. So they brought her here.”
“And you don’t know her last name?”
“Nothing about her whatever. I gave her the name Allegra, and of course when I adopted her, she got my own——”
“Then you have legally adopted her?”
“Well, all the red tape isn’t finished yet. I just say I’ve adopted her when people come here for babies because they always pick the prettiest first. And Leggy’s turned out so clever I could better afford to lose some of the older, homelier ones——”
Mrs. Theddon saw the psychological moment had arrived.
“Miss Howland,” she announced firmly, “I want that child badly. But I don’t want her badly enough to haggle over her. I’ll write you a check this moment for a thousand dollars—and not another cent more. But it’s on the understanding that all the legalities are settled by you with the trustees and the girl is delivered at my home before the coming Saturday!”
If Mrs. Theddon had drawn a revolver and shot the Howland person, the latter could not have sat more totally and adequately stunned.
“A—thou—sand—dol—lars!”
“Exactly. A thousand dollars!” Mrs. Theddon’s patronage had gone. She had the crisp poise she used when bargaining with servants or tradesmen.
It took several moments for Miss Howland to recover. A hundred dollars would have been a great persuader. But athousand!
Then her narrow, crafty nature roused from the mental stupor which the offer had produced. If the Theddon woman would pay a thousand dollars, she must want the child very much indeed. Miss Howland flattered herself she knew these pampered, petulant women. She gave facial indications of thrust-and-parry.
“I couldn’t——”
“Very well,” announced Mrs. Theddon. “I withdraw my offer and bid you good-day. But I shall use my influence in certain quarters to secure the child without the payment of a cent. I made you a fair offer to avoid legal procedure and undesirable publicity. But now I withdraw it!”
Mrs. Theddon lowered her veil and prepared to depart—which she had not the least intention of doing.
“Wait a moment!” cried Miss Howland weakly. At once she abandoned any attempt to dicker. It was too risky. “I was about to say I couldn’t desire anything better than to think of little Allegra being adopted by a nice lady like yourself——”
Mrs. Theddon produced her check book.
III
A little, misery-eyed, wood thrush of a girl in a drab-blue pinafore crept out from her hiding place under a corner desk. She fled across the “office”, up the back stairs and into her “room”, a cot under an alcove, before the Howland person returned from the gate where she had enviously watched the grays drive away.
The little girl had overheard. Parentless, nameless, she had been sold by one person and bought by another,—for a thousand dollars!
The intuitive horror of her nonentity, of that sale and purchase, never left the little girl,—not even twenty years later in womanhood.
She crouched—a tiny mite in blue gingham—on the cot and failed to answer Miss Howland when the latter went through the house, calling for her angrily.