Chapter 16

"It tell you it's Miss Parrott's red beads!" declared Ann stoutly. She might be sent back to her work among the pots and kettles, but she would stick fast to her tale. "I seen 'em when I went up to Miss Parrott's room with the bellows I'd cleaned this very morning, through the little winders to her cupboard, an' I'd know 'em anywhere."

The cook stamped her foot, shaking the crash towel which she still retained, and Ann withdrew to those inner precincts that were considered her department.

Meanwhile, Miss Parrott was talking to Simmons, who, touching his hat respectfully when he saw her approach, now came up to await her commands.

"Have the goodness to open the brougham door, Simmons," said Miss Parrott, going through the carriage house to the corner where that ancient vehicle was stored.

Simmons obeyed wonderingly, with an eye askance at Rachel, by the other side of Miss Parrott, eagerly pressing forward.

"Now jump in," said Miss Parrott, but this command was not needed, for Rachel was already within the family coach and prowling around on the old green leather cushion and over the floor with both nervous hands.

"It isn't--oh, yes, it is!" and up she came, red and shining, to hold out a small, white envelope.

Miss Parrott leaned against the brougham, and broke the seal. Rachel, her whole heart in one glad thrill of joy, made little sign except to heave a deep sigh of relief that the note had been found. Simmons, seeing no excuse for lingering further, went back to one of the carriages to go through the form of inspecting its exterior, while he still kept an eye employed in the direction of his mistress.

"Dear Miss Parrott" (so the note ran), "I really do not think it is wise to ask Rachel to remain over night. I will explain later. Another time, perhaps she may do so. Yours respectfully, Almira Henderson."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Parrott to herself, and, folding up the little note into many creases, she stood lost in thought. "Well, I suppose I must yield to the parson's wife, for she has some good reason. But the child shall stay next time."

Rachel, whose spirits had risen, since it was quite positive that the note was not lost, now seized Miss Parrott's hand and hopped and skipped by her side across the green grass on their return to the mansion. Simmons came out of his retirement, his chamois skin with which he had been ostensibly polishing up a carriage, still in his hand, to stand in the doorway to watch them.

"Well, I _am_ surprised," he declared, quite slowly and impressively, as befitted a serving-man to an old genteel family.

"Oh, let's go in there," cried Rachel, catching sight of the tall hollyhocks behind a wicket gate and pulling at the long, slender fingers.

Miss Parrott hesitated.

"Well, just one peep," she said, "for it is near to luncheon time," and she pulled out the watch from her belt. But to Rachel "a peep" meant all the world, so she dropped the fingers and raced through the gateway, to get there first and thus make it last as long as possible.

"Oh, oh!" she cried, her little dark face aflame with delight, "it's the most beautiful place." Then she began to run up and down all the narrow paths marking the circles and hearts and diamonds in which the old-fashioned garden was laid out, and sniffing the fragrance as she ran.

Miss Parrott seated herself on a stone seat by the fountain in the center. Her delight was quite equal to Rachel's, and the thin, wrinkled face assumed a more peaceful expression than it had carried for many a day, so that when Hooper came to summon her to luncheon, he was fairly taken aback at its unwonted cheer.

"Rachel!" Miss Parrott's voice had a pleasant ring to it. Rachel came dancing along a little curving path, the red coral beads flying up and down on her breast, her cheeks nearly as red. "Oh, it's perfectly beautiful here," she cried.

"Do you like it?" Miss Parrott's thin cheek glowed, too. It carried her back to the day when she as a child had been skipping in that old garden, and her heart gave a throb at the thought that there were perhaps in store for her many delights yet, through Rachel's enjoyment of the old-fashioned flowers and shrubs.

"But come, child," she brought herself up suddenly to say, with a little laugh; "Hooper has summoned us to luncheon, and we must obey."

"Do you have to obey a servant?" asked Rachel, coming out of her dance to fall into step by her side, and looking up with wide-open eyes.

"Always," said Miss Parrott most positively, "else they won't obey me, if I don't. It's system that makes everything comfortable, Rachel."

As Rachel knew nothing whatever about system, she followed silently, her small head full of the beautiful garden in which she had been rioting, and which--oh, joy!--Miss Parrott promised she should visit again, when the luncheon was over. And seated at the polished mahogany table, she was so lost in thought that Miss Parrott, in state at the other end, was obliged to speak to her twice before she looked up.

"Finish your soup, child," said Miss Parrott.

Rachel hadn't even begun it, and she now seized the first thing upon which her hand rested, a heavy silver fork. Hooper, back of his mistress's chair, darted forward to put the right implement before her. But Rachel gave him a withering glance that stopped him half-way. "You don't need to come. I've got it"; and she held up her spoon triumphantly, and ever after, all through the meal, she seemed to view his necessary advances as so many affronts, intended to show up her lack of manners, and she exercised all her wits to keep him at bay. So that the old butler was glad when the meal was over.

But long before that time arrived, Rachel had leaned back in her tall, carved chair, letting her knife and fork rest on her plate, while she feasted her eyes over the table, what it held, and then around the whole apartment.

"There's some of the same flowers like the ones in the garden," she said, bringing her gaze back to point to the old-fashioned silver vase and its nodding clusters in the center of the table. "What are they?"

"Those are larkspur," said Miss Parrott, craning her neck to see around the high silver service from which she poured her tea.

"And what's the other, this side?" Rachel bobbed over on her chair, till Hooper involuntarily closed his eyes, expecting she would go entirely off from her chair, and he didn't want to see it, it would be so disgraceful at a Parrott table.

"That?" Miss Parrott, too, leaned over on her chair. "Oh--why, that's a ragged robin, Rachel."

"_Ragged robin!_" repeated Rachel, hopping off from her chair. "Oh, I want to see it," and she ran around the table-end, and leaned over to get a better view. "'Tisn't a bit ragged," she cried, very much disappointed, "and besides, he isn't there."

"Oh, Rachel!" exclaimed Miss Parrott, in dismay. "You must not do so; we never leave our chairs when we are at the dining-table."

Rachel, thus admonished, scuttled back to her seat, while Hooper groaned and pretended not to see anything. But she kept her black eyes fastened on the ragged robins. "There isn't any bird there," she said.

"What, child?"

"You said there was a robin in those flowers," said Rachel again, using her little brown fingers to designate the vase and its contents, "and that he was ragged, and there isn't any."

"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Miss Parrott; then she laughed. "The flowers are called ragged robins, Rachel," she said.

"Oh!" said Rachel; then she laughed, too, a merry little peal, that just bubbled over because she was happy.

"Now eat your luncheon," said Miss Parrott. "Hooper, you may give her some more milk."

"I don't want any more milk," said Rachel, waving him off with quite an air. "I've got lots and lots"--peering into her cup. She took up her knife and fork again, but, looking over them, found so many things to call for more attention than they seemed to be worthy of, that she soon laid them down again upon her plate.

"Where did you used to sit when you was a little girl?" she asked suddenly, when she had been reflecting a bit.

"I? Oh, I sat at the side of the table," said Miss Parrott, starting, as she was thus hastily summoned down into her past.

"Then can't I sit there now?" cried Rachel, flying out of her chair again. "Say, can't I? Do let me." She ran clear around the table and hung over Miss Parrott's chair.

Hooper groaned again and looked steadfastly out of the opposite window.

"My child," exclaimed Miss Parrott; her tone was very grave, but she put her long arm around Rachel and drew her closely to her, "remember what I said: you must not leave your chair during a meal."

"I forgot," Rachel flew back again, not waiting for her request to be granted, and sat down meekly in her place.

"And you must eat something," continued Miss Parrott, glancing at the little girl's plate, and with dreadful qualms at her old heart for having been severe. "If you don't, Rachel, Mrs. Henderson won't let you come here again."

The solemn butler folded and unfolded his hands, while his face expressed the belief that such a calamity could possibly be borne.

"And if you didn't come, Rachel"--Miss Parrott took up her cup of tea, and set it down again untouched--"I should feel very sorry; I should indeed," she added, with a little catch in her throat.

"So should I," said Rachel abruptly; then she picked up her knife and fork and began to eat as fast as she could.

"Oh, my dear!" cried Miss Parrott, quite horrified, "not so fast! Pray don't, Rachel"--looking down the table-length in distress.

Rachel by this time was alive to the disgrace she was undergoing, and she turned quite pale, and deserting her food altogether, sat stiff and straight on her chair, too miserable to care for anything. Miss Parrott bore this for a breathing-space, and then without a warning she slipped off from her chair and went quickly down to the end of the table.

"I'm not blaming you, you poor little thing," she declared, bending over the dark hair; "don't think so, Rachel."

Rachel turned with a swift movement and hid her face in the laces falling from Miss Parrott's breast.

"I want to go home to Mrs. Henderson's," she sobbed.

"We don't care for any more luncheon, Hooper," said Miss Parrott hoarsely, taking Rachel's hand, "We will go into the other room," and she led her off sobbing.

When Rachel reached Hooper, however, standing petrified with surprise, she looked up at him defiantly and brushed the tears from her cheek.

And after they had passed out, Hooper still stood in a daze. At last he came out of it, and, ejaculating, "Well, I never did!" he began to clear the table.

Once outside, Miss Parrott turned suddenly.

"We'll go back to the garden," she said.

This pleased Rachel very much, and she forgot her distress and mortification, and actually smiled up into the old face.

"Your hand's shaking," she announced, turning her gaze to the long, slender fingers covering her own little brown palm.

"Is it?" said Miss Parrott absently.

"Yes, it shakes dreadfully," said Rachel, with a critical air. "Look!"--pointing down at it.

"Oh, that is nothing," began Miss Parrott; then she stopped suddenly and put both hands on the thin little shoulders. "Oh, child," she said brokenly, "I did so hope you'd like me, for I've nothing in this world to live for, Rachel, and now you want to go back to the parsonage."

"Oh, I don't want to go back--I do love you!" cried Rachel, in great alarm, and she raised her little brown hands and actually smoothed the long, wrinkled face between them. "Don't look so, you look dreadful," she pleaded.

For at the touch of those childish hands over her face, Miss Parrott broke utterly down, all her aristocratic traditions falling away in a second of time, to reveal her lonely, hopeless life. And she sobbed in a way very hard for any onlooker to hear. To Rachel, powerless to stop her, it seemed the most terrible thing in all this world, and she burst out in her misery:

"I'll stay here forever if you'll stop."

That word "forever" did what nothing else could have achieved. It brought Miss Parrott to herself. Then it was Rachel who led her about the old-fashioned garden, and chattered about the flowers, unmindful whether or no she was answered, until presently Miss Parrott was quite recovered, and even smiling in a well-pleased way. At last she pulled out her ancient watch from her belt.

"Now, Rachel," she said, "you must go back to the parsonage this afternoon, for Mrs. Henderson expects you."

"I'll stay if you want me to," said Rachel, moving closer to Miss Parrott's side.

"No, dear--not to-day, because it wouldn't be right; the parson and his wife only loaned you to me for to-day, but----"

"What's 'loaned'?" interrupted Rachel abruptly, and wrinkling her forehead.

"Why, they only let me have you just for today," said Miss Parrott.

"Oh."

"And so you must go back, but I shall come for you again," and Miss Parrott turned a hungry glance down upon the dark little face at her side.

"I'll come," said Rachel, with a sociable nod.

"And, Rachel"--Miss Parrott drew her closer to her side--"you may keep the coral beads, dear. That shows you are really coming back to me to stay."

"For ever and always?" cried Rachel, patting the necklace lovingly with one hand. "Can I keep 'em just forever? Say, can I?"

"Yes, child"--Miss Parrott's old face smiled in delight at the compact--"they are yours to keep all your life. And now," she added brightly, "I want you to come into the drawing-room, and----"

"What's 'drawing-room'?" demanded Rachel, who felt it was much better for all concerned in a conversation to understand things as they went along.

"Why, that is the parlor," answered Miss Parrott.

"Oh."

"I want to hear you sing, Rachel," cried Miss Parrott longingly. "I can hardly wait, come." She hurried the child along with hasty steps, Rachel skipping by her side.

"I'll sing," she said, "all you want me to. I know lots and lots of things"--until the grand piano in the long, dim drawing-room, not opened for many years, was reached. Then she spun down the middle of the apartment. "I'm going to dance first," she announced, picking out the skirt of her gown on either side. "My, but ain't it dark, here, though!"

XXIV

RACHEL'S FUTURE

When the old brougham drew up in front of the colonial door, Miss Parrott let her hands fall away from the time-stained piano-keys.

"It can't surely be time for you to go, Rachel."

Then she did a thing she could not remember doing in all her life, she deliberately went on with her employment, allowing Simmons to wait on his carriage box, while she broke up the system of years that always made her punctual to a minute.

"You may sing that over again, Rachel," she said, beginning on the strains of the opera that Rachel had gathered from the barrel-organ on the street corners.

"Then may I dance again?" begged Rachel. "Please--just once before I go."

"Yes," said Miss Parrott, sitting very straight, and giving all the graceful little quirks to the slender fingers which her music-master, long since dead and buried, had taught her. "Now begin, child."

So up and down, high and clear, rang Rachel's voice, with no more effort than the birds outside put forth, the sound penetrating the ancient walls, and paralyzing every domestic, while it nearly made Simmons, outside, fall from his box.

"She hain't touched that pianner in ten years," said the cook, in a hushed voice. "Oh, me! I'm afraid she's going to die," and she flung her apron over her head.

"Die!" exclaimed Hooper, finding his voice. "She won't die with that young one here," he added, in scorn.

"Now may I dance?" pleaded Rachel, plucking Miss Parrott's sleeve. "Do let me; you said I might."

"Yes," said Miss Parrott, wrenching herself away from the operatic strains, to begin on a little old-fashioned jig.

"Oh, that's so funny," giggled Rachel, hopping aimlessly in the center of the big drawing-room and trying to keep time. "Do stop; you put me all out."

"But that is a dancing-tune," said Miss Parrott, jingling away, "and sister and I used to dance quite prettily to it, I remember."

"Well, I can't," said Rachel, hopping wildly, and doing her best to get into step. "Oh, dear!" she brought up suddenly, flushed and panting.

"What is the matter, Rachel?" Miss Parrott let her hands rest on the yellow ivory keys and looked over her shoulder at her.

"Oh, I can't dance," said Rachel, "when you play so funnily. It doesn't go like that; it goes so." She picked up her gown again, and made a sweep off in one direction, and then in another, her feet scarcely touching the pictured roses and lilies with which the velvet carpet was strewn, all the while singing a tune that seemed to carry her off on its own melody. Miss Parrott turned around on the music-stool, and watched her breathlessly.

It was therefore much later than the parsonage people expected when the old brougham set Rachel down at their gate, and she walked into the house, supported on either side by Peletiah and Ezekiel, who had been watching there a full hour for her arrival.

"I like her," she said, marching up to the minister's wife. "She gave me these"--putting her hand on the red coral beads on her neck--"and I'm going back again--to-morrow, I guess."

But it wasn't to stay, that Rachel went back on the morrow; it was only for a day. Despite all the pleadings made by Miss Parrott, and all the desire of the parson and his wife to please their honored parishioner, and most of all, the earnest wish to consent to what would probably be for the child's best good, they held firmly to the first statement, that nothing could be arranged till Mrs. Fisher and Mr. King had been consulted.

"They have sent the child here to us, and here she must stay until they make some other arrangement," they said firmly, and no amount of urging could make them say anything else.

So letters had to fly back and forth from the parsonage and the King estate in the big city, and Miss Parrott wrote long letters in a pinched, lady-like hand in very faint ink, crossing the paper whenever she was afraid she hadn't said enough to plead her cause successfully. Which condition of mind she was in perpetually, all through these writing days. These letters old Mr. King endeavored to read at the first, but he soon threw them down impatiently.

"The child shall never go to a woman who has no more sense," he loudly declared.

Then Polly or Jasper would hurry in and wade through the missives. And when he saw the hungry longing of the desolate soul, and the sweet refinement of the writer came out, and the sterling honesty was revealed in the prim sentences, he relented and went tumultuously over to the other side.

"Yes, yes, she shall go," he declared, pulling out his big handkerchief to blow his nose violently, to remove all suspicion that anything was the matter with his eyes; "'twould be the best thing in the world for her. Of course she must go."

And so it was finally settled that Rachel was to live at Miss Parrott's and be her own little girl, going down to the parsonage every day to learn her lessons under Mr. Henderson's care, until the time when she would be ready to be sent to such a school as Miss Parrott might select should arrive.

"And she must come and see me sometimes," said Phronsie when the announcement was made in the King household. "My little girl may come, can't she, Grandpapa?" she begged.

"Yes, yes, child," said old Mr. King warmly; "we all shall want to see Rachel now and then."

The Comfort committee being well-established and in fine running order by this time, Mrs. Sterling gathering them around her sofa, in her spacious sitting-room upstairs, Polly and Alexia saw no reason why they shouldn't begin work on the Cooking Club, "because," said Polly, "if we are really going to learn how to cook things, why, we ought to begin." And the mothers of the several boys and girls who were to form it, taking instantly to the idea, the two girls and Jasper set to work to write the notices of the first meeting.

"We ought to have another boy," said Jasper, "on the Committee."

Alexia wrinkled up her face. "Oh, don't; boys are so tiresome," she said.

"Why, I am a boy," said Jasper, bursting into a laugh.

"Oh, well, you are different," said Alexia; "we always expect you around."

"Thank you," said Jasper, with a low bow; "I'm sure I ought to feel very much complimented, Alexia," and he laughed again.

"Well, I'm sure boys are such nuisances," said Alexia, leaning her long arms on the table (they were in the library at Mr. King's), "and besides they won't want to come to our Cooking Club, I verily believe, so what's the use of having them on the Committee?"

"Oh, yes, they will," declared Jasper eagerly; "you don't know anything about it, if you say that. Why, Clare, and Pickering, and ever so many more are just wild to be asked."

"Oh, well, then if we've got to have some boy on the Committee," said Alexia, accepting the situation, "let's ask Pickering Dodge."

"I'd rather have Pick," said Jasper in a tone of great satisfaction; and Polly saying the same thing, it was decided then and there.

"Well, now that matter is off our hands," said Alexia, "let's get to writing these old notices," and her hands began to bustle about among the little pile of paper and envelopes.

"Hold on," said Jasper; "if Pick is to be on this committee, he must help us with these things; and he'll want to, for it will be great fun."

"O bother!" exclaimed Alexia, jerking back her chair, "now we've got to wait. You see for yourself what a nuisance it is to try to get you boys in, Jasper."

"Oh, I'll get Pick over here in a jiffy," declared Jasper, plunging out of the library; "you won't have to wait long for us, Alexia."

It wasn't more than ten minutes by the clock, when in rushed the two boys and swarmed around the big table.

"Well, I declare," cried Alexia, looking up admiringly from a receipt book which Mrs. Fisher had loaned them, and over which the heads of the two girls were bent, "if you boys haven't been quick, though!"

"Haven't we?" cried Jasper, and his eyes twinkled.

"Don't tell," whispered Pickering over his shoulder.

"And what are you two whispering about?" cried Alexia, deserting the cook-book: "Now, tell us," she demanded, dreadfully afraid she would miss some news.

"Well, you see--" began Jasper.

"Hush--hush!" said Pickering.

"Now don't pay any attention to Pickering," said Alexia, turning a cold shoulder to the last-mentioned individual; "do tell us, Jasper, what is it?"

"The fact is," said Jasper, laughing, "I didn't have to go for Pickering at all; that is, only to the corner. He was coming here."

"And Jasper nearly knocked the breath out of me," finished Pickering, "he bolted into me so."

"Well, you were on the wrong side of the pavement," retorted Jasper.

"Is that all?" cried Alexia, horribly disappointed to get no news. "Oh, dear me! Well, do sit down, now you have come, and let us get to these horrible old notices."

So the boys drew up their chairs, and Polly pushed the cook-book, with an affectionate little pat, into the center of the table. "That's what we are going to study," she said gleefully.

"Study?" echoed Pickering, with a very long face. "I didn't come over here to study; I get enough of that at school," and he glared in a very injured way at Jasper.

"Don't get upset," said Jasper, patting him on the back; "you'll like this, Pick, I tell you."

"And it's a cook-book," said Polly, laughing merrily.

"All right," said Pickering, immensely relieved, and reaching out his long arm, he seized it, and whirled the leaves. "'Lemon pie'--that sounds good. 'How to cook cabbage'--oh, dear me!"

"See here now"--Jasper seized the book and shut it up with a bang--"no one is going to look into that, until we write these notices. Why, we haven't even got a Cooking Club yet."