CHAPTER XXXIX
THE END OF A JOURNEY
Aunt Eunice said she would lie down for a bit before dinner. Really shefelt the need of rest after the long ride from Monk's Bay. CousinPenelope approved, but said that she would go herself to call on MadameWoleski. Would Jacqueline come with her?
Caroline shook her head. Please, she would like to rest, too, beforedinner. She was tired out. And that last was no fib. She seemed toherself to be tired clear through to her very soul.
Up in the airy green and gold chamber that was Jacqueline's, Carolinesat down in the low rocker, and wondered why the tears didn't come.Tears would have brought relief but she couldn't wait for them. She hadno time to waste, for she was going to be out of that house beforeCousin Penelope came back. No doubt she was a coward and a quitter, justas Jackie had called her, for she couldn't--she simply couldn't--facethe awful, unknown uncle and aunt that didn't belong to her, and evenless could she face the amazement in Aunt Eunice's kind eyes, and theanger in Cousin Penelope's.
Of course, though, she must leave a word, so that they need not worrywhen they found her gone. She sat down at the pretty desk with the brassfittings that she had so longed to use, and for the first and only timeshe wrote a letter on the creamy thick paper with "The Chimnies,Longmeadow, Massachusetts" engraved upon it. This was the letter:
DEAR MRS. GILDERSLEEVE:
I can't say Aunt Eunice because you are not my aunt, and I am very sorry. And I have not hurt Jackie's things, only holes in some of the sox and the clasp of the gold beads is broken. I am sorry about the dentist's bill and the music lessons. I should not have let you but there are cows at the farm and so many babies at Cousin Delia's. I am taking Mildred's clothes you made because Jackie doesn't like dolls and maybe they wouldn't fit hers anyway and the satin box she gave me herself. I will send back Jackie's clothes I have on and I am sorry.
Affectionately yours, CAROLINE TAIT, which is my name.
Please tell Miss Penelope how sorry I am when she was so good to me and you were so good, and give my kindest regards to Sallie and Hannah.
She was crying a little now. How funny the round tears looked where theyspattered on the creamy paper! She blotted the sheet hastily and slippedit into an envelope. In story books, when people left home, they alwayspinned their farewell notes to the pin-cushion, but that seemed toCaroline a foolish thing to do. How should Aunt Eunice see a little noteon the pin-cushion, if she looked in at the door? And Aunt Eunice mustsee it at once, or she might be worried when there was no little girl inthe house at dinner time.
After a moment's thought Caroline softly tipped the rocker forwardignominiously upon the floor. She placed a pillow from the bed upon therocker, and pinned her note, addressed to "Mrs. Gildersleeve," upon thepillow. Certainly Aunt Eunice or Cousin Penelope or whoever came firstinto the room would be sufficiently struck with the oddity of itsarrangement to look further and find the note. Then she put on her hat(Jacqueline's hat, but the plainest she could find!) and she tookMildred under one arm, and the satin box, full of little doll-clothes,under the other arm, and softly, on tiptoe, not daring to look back, shestole out of the darling room, and closed the door upon it.
If she happened to meet Sallie, she meant to tell her she was going tolook for Eleanor Trowbridge. But she didn't meet Sallie. Unchallenged,she slipped out at the front door and across the fragrant garden, whereshe was never to play again. Through the gap in the hedge she reachedthe shortcut, and a moment later she was in Longmeadow Street, andheading south toward the road that she knew led into the Meadows.
A smart sedan came rolling toward her up the wide, shaded street. As itmet her and passed by, she was aware of people who nodded to herpleasantly. That was Mrs. Francis Holden, the Judge's daughter-in-law,and Doris and Edith Holden, her two little girls with whom Caroline hadplayed sometimes. They were bowing and smiling to JacquelineGildersleeve, in a kilted pongee skirt and an orange silk slip-over.They weren't bowing to Caroline Tait, in borrowed clothes. They wouldnever know Caroline Tait.
For down in the Meadows, surely Caroline would be in a different schooldistrict, and as for Sunday School--she was never coming to Longmeadowagain, not even for Sunday School--not even if she died a heathen! Shewould do anything half-aunt Martha asked her to do--why, she believedshe would even milk the cows!--if only half-aunt Martha wouldn't makeher go into Longmeadow for anything. She simply couldn't face thevillage and the people who had known her as Jacqueline, now that theymust know her as a cheat. She would be too ashamed.
The shaded, wide street, with its picturesque old houses set in theircolorful, scented gardens, opened in a little patch of sun and dust,where the treeless road to the Meadows branched off. Here Carolineturned her back on Longmeadow, and trudged heavily along the way thatwas marked out for her. The sun was sinking toward the western hills,but the air was hot and breathless, and the smell of the onion fieldscaught her by the throat and almost choked her. Now and then anautomobile overtook and passed her--ramshackle cars, mostly, and in themswarthy men, who spoke a strange tongue. Once one of them called to her.
It was only friendly Mr. Zabriski, in his kindness offering a ride to astrange, white-faced child, who looked too tired to walk, but toCaroline he seemed a dangerous character. She clutched Mildred and thebox of clothes, and scuttled off among the onions, and Mr. Zabriski,justly offended, grunted his indignation and clattered on.
The powdery white dust hung in a cloud above the road after he hadpassed. Caroline breathed it, ate it. There was dust in her hair--dustin her shoes. She wondered if she could keep on setting one foot beforethe other until she reached her destination. How far was it to theConway farm in the Meadows? Jackie had walked the distance and madelight of it. But Jackie was afraid of nothing.
At the first house she came to on the sparsely settled road she saw abig dog, so she did not dare to stop and ask questions. At the secondhouse, a long way farther on, were swarthy children, who shouted at herin their strange tongue, and in terror for Mildred she almost ran pastthe place without stopping. By the time she reached the third house, hermouth and throat were lined with dust and she was ready to cry withweariness and despair. She would have asked any one for directions now,even a Polish farm-hand or a jeering child. But when she reached thetumble-down gray house, she found it tenantless.
She sat for a little while on the doorstep and rested. The sun wassinking fast. More cars rattled by in the dust, as men went home fromthe fields. Soon it would be dinner time at The Chimnies. She must findJackie quickly. In a panic she realized that her letter of explanationreally hadn't explained things. Jackie was needed to set matters rightand ease Aunt Eunice's mind. She got to her aching feet and ploddedstiffly on through the powdery dust.
She thought that she would never reach the fourth house. It seemedalways to recede, as she drew near it on her weary feet. It was a squarehouse under some elms. It needed paint badly. There were lilac bushes bythe sagging front door. In the side-yard an old hammock swung betweentwo trees. In the trodden dirt beside the hammock two little childrenwere playing--a girl at the toddling age, and a boy in overalls, who wasa couple of years older. With joy she saw that they weren't foreignchildren. Hopefully she went up to them.
"Hello!" said the little boy, with a smeared and friendly smile.
"Hello!" said Caroline. "Who lives here?"
"I do," said the boy. He went on digging up dirt with an iron spoon andputting it into an old baking dish.
"What's your name?" Caroline pursued.
"Freddie," he told her. "She's Annie. She's my sister."
"But what's your other name?" begged Caroline. "What's your mother'sname?"
"My mother's dead," Freddie told her nonchalantly. "Aunt Marfa's mymother now."
Aunt Martha! Then her search was over. This was the farm, and here weretwo of her
cousins, and the cows were somewhere, ambushed, perhaps, inthe big barn that was filling fast with shadows.
"Where you going?" Freddie looked up to question in his turn.
"Nowhere," Caroline told him, over a great lump in her dusty throat.Indeed there was no going farther. Least of all was it possible to turnback.
She left the children, and with dragging steps she walked across theside-yard to what must be the kitchen door of the farm-house. Shestopped on the doorstep and looked through the screen door into anold-fashioned, low-ceiled kitchen. Pretty soon the room would be asfamiliar to her as Cousin Delia's kitchen, with its faded linoleum andmud-colored wood-work. But now she found it strange, and rather terriblein its strangeness. If she didn't knock quickly, she would lose courageand run away and hide--and there was no place to run to! She knockedquickly and loudly on the frame of the screen door.
In another moment a squarely-built woman, with a bibbed apron over herdark dress, came hurrying out from an inner room. She had keen gray eyesthat in one second seemed to have taken in the whole of Caroline, fromher dusty sandals (Jacqueline's sandals!) to her brown leghorn hat.
"Bobbed brown hair and going on eleven," the woman murmured, and thenshe threw the screen door wide open. "I guess I know who you are, thistime," she said, with a dry chuckle. "Come right in here, CarolineTait."