CHAPTER XXVIII
THE UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE
If Jacqueline had been given to quoting poetry, she might have said:
"'I feel chilly, and grown old!'"
Not being given that way, she confessed merely to what Grandma called "agone feeling." She sat down suddenly on the steps of the porch, quite asif she had been hit a sudden hard clip in the stomach.
"What makes you look so funny?" Eleanor Trowbridge asked sociably. "Areyou coming down with something? I went and nearly had rash but Ididn't."
"Where have they gone?" Jacqueline interrupted Eleanor's flow ofconfidences.
"To the beach, I told you."
"For goodness' sake! _What_ beach? I suppose there's more than _one_ inyour horrid old New England."
This insult to the land of her fathers provoked Eleanor, not withoutreason. She tossed her head and answered snappishly:
"Mother says I shouldn't tell all I know to every stranger."
She turned and started to walk away, but not very eagerly. Jacquelinemastered the desire to shake her, got up, and went after her.
"Now don't get peeved," she told Eleanor. "I've got a most specialreason why I want to see--er--Jacqueline."
"Well, what of it?" Eleanor muttered ungraciously, but without walkingon.
"It's a great secret," Jacqueline admitted. "Maybe some day I'll tellyou." She smiled--and you may remember that she had a quite bewitchingsmile.
"Will you tell me? Honest and truly?" Eleanor asked.
"Cross my heart and hope to die if I don't," Jacqueline rattled offglibly. "There's a mystery--and I'll let you in on it some time--ifyou'll only tell me where she's gone."
"Oh, dear!" whined Eleanor. "But I don't know."
"Don't know?" repeated Jacqueline blankly, while once more the greenworld seemed to rock beneath her.
"She didn't tell me," Eleanor explained in an injured tone. "She cooey'dover the hedge, and said they were going off, so we couldn't play teaparty in the afternoon, and they went in the limousine with the trunksin the carrier, and Sallie and Hannah--that's the cook--went on avacation, and she said the beach, but she didn't say what beach, andMildred was all dressed up in a sailor suit with such a ducky hat,and----"
"When did they go?" Jacqueline stemmed the torrent of words.
"Why, just yesterday."
Yesterday! Only yesterday! By such a narrow margin she had missedCaroline.
"Dumb-paste it!" cried Jacqueline, beside herself.
"That's a bad word," said Eleanor austerely.
"'Tisn't either," Jacqueline retorted. "Don't you ever paste things?"
"Not that way," insisted Eleanor.
"Well, I don't care," said Jacqueline morosely. "I suppose she isn'tgoing to write you?" she caught at the last rag of fluttering hope.
Eleanor was eager with explanations:
"I asked her to, but she looked scared, and said she never wroteletters."
Oh, docile Caroline! Only too well had she remembered and carried outthe instructions of her leader. The reward of her docility was thatJacqueline merely yearned to shake her.
"Well," Jacqueline controlled herself with effort. "It looks as if Icouldn't get at her till she comes back."
"It looks that way," agreed Eleanor.
Jacqueline gazed hopelessly at the big house, her haven of refuge,shuttered, bolted, barred against her, by people who were gone, no onecould tell her where.
"You're sure," she faltered, "that even the maids have gone? Perhapsthey could tell me----"
"Sure they're gone," said Eleanor cheerfully. "They asked our Maggie tofeed the gray cat that comes round their garage."
Jacqueline drew a long breath.
"Well," she said, like a game little echo of her Uncle Jimmie. "I guessI'd better be on my way." Eleanor tagged at her side through thefragrant garden.
"Couldn't you stay and play with me?" she suggested.
"Not to-day, kid," Jacqueline told her loftily. She felt herself olderthan Eleanor--immeasurably older. Wasn't she suddenly called upon toface a problem beyond Eleanor's grasping--a problem such as she hadnever expected to be called upon to face?
Out in Longmeadow Street, which was all a pleasant checker-board oflight and shadow, Jacqueline lagged slowly toward the Post Office. Whatshould she do, she asked herself, over and over again? She _must_ getsome money. But she couldn't reach Caroline, not for weeks and weeks.She would have to write directly to Judge Blair, and ask him to addressthe answer to her as Caroline Tait, and she would have to tell him why.Not that! For he would be sure to write the whole story to Aunt Eunice(he, no doubt, in the inscrutable wisdom of grown-ups, would know whereto find her) and then----
Jacqueline might be mad enough at Caroline for letting herself bewhisked away, no one knew where, without a word to her, but still shewasn't going to let her in for the sort of scolding she was sure thatpinch-faced Cousin Penelope was bound to give her, when she found her tobe an impostor. No, she'd got to grin and bear it. No money--no chanceto get money--and all the work to do--and Aunt Martha tired out--andGrandma crying in her feebleness for the thin china that no one couldafford to buy her.
Oh, prancing camelopards, and bounding orang-outangs! Alsochisel-toothed baboons! There were not beasts enough in the menagerie,nor words enough in the unabridged dictionary to express the feelingsthat surged in Jacqueline's bosom beneath the faded pink and whitechecked gingham! She felt the tears of hot anger and disappointment andpity, too, for little Grandma, well up into her eyes. To hide them fromthe curious gaze of two young girls, who came sauntering toward heralong the graveled sidewalk, she stopped, and stared hard into aconvenient shop window, which happened to be Miss Crevey's.
There were all sorts of things displayed in the window--cards of whiteruching, edged with black, novels by Mary Jane Holmes, glass jars ofwilted candy sticks, china boxes with the words "Souvenir of Longmeadow"painted in gilt upon them, sheets of dusty paper dolls in staringcolors. Jacqueline's gaze passed over the queer assortment of articles,and rested on the little shelf against the wall, at one side of thewindow. On the shelf was a glove box of birch bark and cones and abright-colored copy of "The Angelus," and between them----
She rubbed her eyes. She looked again. Yes, between them stood what AuntMartha had vowed no longer could be had for love nor money--a cup ofthin china--an ancient cup--with a pattern of green dragons.