CHAPTER XLI
NIGHT OF JUDGMENT
They were all seated in the softly lighted parlor at TheChimnies--Cousin Penelope, stonily silent, Aunt Eunice, wiping herspectacles over and over, Aunt Edie, little and gray-eyed, withhelpless, fluttery gestures--when Jacqueline, like a criminal incustody, walked in at Uncle Jimmie's side.
An entrance all right, and drama, but not the kind Jacqueline wanted!
"Oh, Jackie!" cried Aunt Edie, as soon as she set eyes on her. "Youdreadful child! What _have_ you done now? What _will_ you do next? Comehere and kiss me! I hope you didn't catch anything in that queer place.I'm so afraid of typhus in these gone-to-seed old townships."
Aunt Edie was insulting New England, just as Cousin Penelope hadexpected her to do, but Cousin Penelope hadn't the spirit left to domore than fling her a disdainful glance.
"Go say how-do-you-do to your Aunt Eunice," Aunt Edie bade Jacqueline,"and tell her you're sorry. You owe her all sorts of apologies. Ishouldn't think she'd ask you inside her house, after the way you'vebehaved."
Jacqueline shrugged her shoulders. One had to put on indifference, ifone didn't want to bawl. She went to Great-aunt Eunice, made her littlecurtsy, and offered a limp hand.
"Well, well, Jacqueline," said Aunt Eunice, being nice with an effortthat did not escape Jacqueline, "we're very glad to see you here atlast. Now we'd better have dinner."
"Jackie, you don't _deserve_ any dinner," Aunt Edie spoke emphatically,and this time Cousin Penelope shot her a glance of heartiest approval.
"I don't _want_ any dinner, thanks," said Jacqueline with her chin up."I had my supper at Aunt Martha's, and it's a very clean, nice place,and no typhus at all, and I hope you didn't bring any germs and thingsback with _you_ from your nasty old Alaska."
"Now don't get fresh," warned Uncle Jimmie.
Everybody hated her--everybody in the world--it was worse thanInstitutions--and Aunt Martha was way off in the Meadows! Jacquelinefelt the belittling hot tears well into her eyes.
"Then don't you say things about the farm," she flared, "nor about AuntMartha--she's a lovely aunt--and I never had a grandmother before--andoh, dear! Freddie cried when I left, and maybe he's crying for me now."
She felt her eyes brim over with tears, which she brushed angrily away.Aunt Edie made a little helpless movement, as if she might rise and goto her, but she met Uncle Jimmie's eye and sat still. Aunt Eunice,however, wasn't any relation to Uncle Jimmie by marriage or otherwise,and she didn't care _how_ he looked at her. She just put her arm roundJacqueline and drew her close.
"Come, come, dear," she comforted. "Nobody meant to speak against MarthaConway. She's the salt of the earth, and I don't doubt but the summerwith her has done you a lot of good."
"I'll say it has," Jacqueline sniffled while she felt forlornly for ahandkerchief. "I can make gingerbread--and apple-sauce--and cook eggsfive different ways. It was a corking farm--and I'm going down thereto-morrow. I told the boys I would. I didn't say half the things I wantto say to Carol. I'm going down there early and stay all day----"
"But there won't be any time to-morrow," Aunt Edie struck in. "Didn'tUncle Jimmie tell you?"
"We've not indulged in much conversation," Uncle Jimmie spoke dryly.
"We've got to be in New York to-morrow afternoon," explained Aunt Edie."We'll have to start at crack of dawn, but don't bother about breakfastfor us, Mrs. Gildersleeve. We can get something at the hotel in the nextbig town. We have to rush--we've booked passage on the _Crespic_ thatsails on Saturday--and there's rafts of things to do in New York. Jimhas to see people. He's going over for the Government, you know."
She gazed at her Jim proudly. Jacqueline stood with Aunt Eunice's armabout her (Aunt Eunice who, she knew, would rather she were Caroline!)and felt chilly and out of things.
"Am I going, too, Aunt Edie?" she questioned falteringly.
"Oh, yes, doodle-bug," Aunt Edie unbent at last, in spite of UncleJimmie. "We can't leave you behind--no knowing what you'd get into next.We'll be trotting all over the Continent but we'll find a school for youin Switzerland----"
"A strict one," said Uncle Jimmie.
My, how grouchy he was! But he hadn't had a chance yet to wash off thedust of two hundred miles swift motoring and nobody seemed to think atall about his comfort.
"But I don't _want_ to go away to-morrow," said Jacqueline painfully."I've got to see Carol again--I _must_ see Carol."
"I'm afraid Carol will have to wait," Aunt Edie dismissed the subjectlightly. "Can we have ten minutes grace before dinner, Mrs.Gildersleeve? Jim wants to brush himself, I know."
That was all Caroline and her affairs meant to them, those grown folkwho were settling things for Jacqueline. Aunt Edie rushed Uncle Jimmieoff to the guest room. Cousin Penelope said something in a cold voiceabout having dinner served, if it weren't entirely spoiled by now.Secretly Jacqueline hoped it was spoiled, since Cousin Penelope wouldhave to eat it.
Aunt Eunice was the only one who understood or cared. She said:
"I'll show you to your room now, Jacqueline."
"I can find it myself," said Jacqueline stiffly. "I was here in yourhouse before. Didn't that Judge tell you about the beads--my _own_beads? But I'd like to have you show me, just the same, if it isn't toomuch trouble," she conceded, more graciously.
Side by side they went up the stairway just as Aunt Eunice and Carolinehad gone, weeks before. The door was opened into the bedroom thatJacqueline remembered. Aunt Eunice fumbled with the electric button, andthe light flooded the pale paper with its leafy frieze, the French grayfurniture, the oyster white rug--and in the middle of the rug was therocking chair on its face, with a pillow laid upon its rockers, and anote pinned to the pillow. Jacqueline sprang and seized the note.
"It's for you, Aunt Eunice," she cried, "and I bet anything it's fromCarol. Of course she wouldn't go away without a word. Oh, read it, do!"
Aunt Eunice read the little letter that was splashed with Caroline'stears.
"Oh, dear!" quavered Aunt Eunice, beneath her breath. "The poor littlelamb! Oh, dear!"
For one second Aunt Eunice and Jacqueline looked at each other with eyesof complete understanding. Then Jacqueline threw her arms about AuntEunice, and burst out crying, as she had not once cried for her owndistress.
"Oh, oh!" she wailed. "She'll hate it at the farm--I know she will. Thepiano is funny and old and out of tune--and if you don't sit on thoseboys, they get fresh. And Carol won't sit on 'em. She's a 'fraid cat.She wouldn't have changed round with me in the first place, if I hadn'tmade her."
"Don't, don't, my dear!" Aunt Eunice tried to soothe in a broken voice.
"But she never had a party," Jacqueline wept on, "not till you gave herone. That's why we didn't change back again before. We were going to--Iwas so sick of it at the farm--but she had to have her party--she justcried because she wanted it so--she said it was heaven here--and thenasty old music lessons--she _liked_ 'em, can you beat it? I wanted togo see her to-morrow--she wouldn't keep these clothes--but I want her tohave some of mine--and a winter coat--I'll make her take 'em--hers arefunny and old and mended--and I've worn 'em out dreadfully--and sheloves pretty clothes--and she won't have any more now ever--nor dentistsnor music--and she was eating out of a shoe box on the train--and itwasn't her fault at all--I put her up to it, there on the train--andnow--she's the one that has--to have--a horrid time--and c-cows!"
It was really dreadful, the way Jacqueline was crying now that she hadlet herself go. Cousin Penelope, coming up the stairs, heard the sobsand screams and hurried into the room.
"Mother!" she spoke frowningly. "Really, you mustn't make yourselfill--over this child."
Oh, the worlds of contempt in Cousin Penelope's tone, for all that "thischild" was Jack Gildersleeve's truly daughter!
Aunt Edie came, too, from the guest room down the hall, more flutterythan ever, and Uncle Jimmie, who wasn't fluttery at all. It was he whotook the situat
ion sternly in hand.
"Cut it out now, Jack," he bade. "Don't be a rotten sport."
Obediently Jacqueline took her arms from about Aunt Eunice. She wasfrightened into complete silence, when she saw how pale and faint AuntEunice looked. Of course she would be a sport. Somehow she must makeUncle Jimmie stop frowning at her.
"I didn't mean----" she sniffled. "I'm--awful sorry, Aunt Eunice. Go onand get your old dinner, everybody. I'm not hungry, nor anything, andI'm going right straight off to bed."
Aunt Eunice didn't even kiss Jacqueline. She went away with CousinPenelope, as if she had had all she could stand for one evening, and shetook Caroline's letter, clasped tight in her hand. Uncle Jimmie, at asign from Aunt Edie, followed them, but as he went he cast atJacqueline, struggling with her tears, a look that was a shade lessdisgusted.
Aunt Edie lingered.
"Now don't you cry any more," she said kindly enough, and huggedJacqueline. "It's all over, and you're sorry, and everybody knows it,and forgives you, so everything is all right again. We shall have aripping trip, and of course your Uncle Jimmie was joking about theschool. You won't be there all the time anyway--we'll take you to placeswith us--and you shall buy heaps of pretty things. Now smile to me, olddoodle-bug!"
Jacqueline smiled--at least she supposed she did. She stretched herlips, and Aunt Edie appeared satisfied, for she kissed her, and urgedher to come have a bite of dinner, just to please Aunt Eunice.
"But if you're going to cry again, never mind, lamb-baba!" she addedhastily. "Get your bath and jump into bed, and I'll come later to tuckyou up."
Then Aunt Edie was gone, and Jacqueline went to the bureau, to getherself a nightdress. She opened the drawers, full of snow-white,hand-made little undergarments, and many-colored socks, finehandkerchiefs and hair-ribbons, little bags and gloves and endlesspretties. She shut the drawers noisily, and went to the closet for akimono. All about her she found hanging little frocks, just as sheremembered them, of net and organdie, crepe and wool, slip-overs andcoats, her precious unused riding suit.
For a second she glowed with the joy of having her own possessions oncemore. She cast a satisfied glance round the pretty room, with itspictures, and knick-knacks of china, its cozy bed, its shaded lights.But this was the room in which Carol had lived, all these weeks, and nowCarol was lying in the north chamber at the farm, where the pictureswere old and ugly, and the wall-paper covered with crazy rose baskets,upside down. Carol, who so loved pretty things and gentle ways!
All over, and everything all right again? That was what Aunt Ediethought, did she? Much she knew about it!
Jacqueline's gaze traveled to the bookshelves in the corner, where thelight from the desk lamp fell strong. She saw lying on the wide topshelf a fat volume in a gay jacket that was familiar. She launchedherself upon it.
"Oh, dumb-paste you!" she cried. "I wish I'd never seen you, you beastlymean old 'Prince and Pauper'!"
She dashed the book on the floor. She kicked it--yes, she actuallykicked it. Then she ran and threw herself recklessly down on thebeautifully made bed, and if Carol, in the lonely north chamber, criedto herself that night, Jacqueline, in the green and gold room at TheChimnies, was crying just as hard, and perhaps a little harder.