Rainbow Cottage (5 page)

Sheila laughed wearily with a great relief in her voice. “Oh, I’ll be good. For to tell you the truth, I’m so absolutely all in that I don’t believe I’d get farther than that lovely wicket gate even if I tried to run away and have a decent self-respect.”

So Grandmother trotted away downstairs to the kitchen almost gleefully and gave exultant little commands to her sullen maid.

“Get the tray, Janet; no, not that one. The silver one from the dining room. And yes, the lace doilies! And the Dresden china!”

There was a “this my son” lilt in her voice.

“A bowl of the hot soup with plenty of rice, Janet! Yes, hot! Not frozen. She’s worn out with a fearful journey and needs stimulating! And the breast of a chicken, Janet, the whole half! And isn’t there a potato roasted yet? A small one could be done, wouldn’t it? When did you put them in? That will do nicely, Janet. You have a pan of hot rolls up in the warming oven, haven’t you? And plenty of butter. Roasted potatoes take a lot, you know, and so do rolls.”

Janet went about with a disapproving air still, but Grandmother ignored it, talking as if Janet were as eager as herself, as indeed she had been but a short hour ago, before she saw the shabby little stranger that was turning out to be the expected granddaughter.

“You had better get a dish of those big red raspberries. We’ll have the ice cream for dinner tonight. And a glass of milk—make it mostly cream, Janet. Yes, a cup of coffee. She needs all the nourishment she can get!”

Janet obeyed silently.

“You know she walked all the way from the station, Janet, in the hot sun.”

Janet said nothing. She had walked all the way from the station herself many times in the hot sun. A girl with a shabby old serge coat like that ought to expect to walk in the hot sun and not mind it, she thought.

“You know, Janet,” said Grandmother, stooping over the sideboard drawer to select one of her very finest napkins, “she’s had a very, very hard time. Her dear mother died only six weeks ago!”

“Oh!” said Janet, sudden sympathy in her voice. “Now, ain’t that too bad! Whyn’t she let you know? You didn’t know it, did you?” There was just a shade of suspicion in Janet’s voice, and Grandmother felt it. It hadn’t occurred to Grandmother that Janet would think of that. In fact, she hadn’t thought of it herself till Janet mentioned it.

“No,” said Grandmother in a confiding tone, thinking fast and using her imagination, “no, she didn’t tell me. She was all alone out there, very far out from town and nobody to help her with things, and I guess she was so stunned she didn’t really think of it. Besides, she is very proud, Janet. She was afraid I would think I had to help. You know her father—my—my youngest son—had gone away some—months before—” Grandmother was feeling her way through her explanation, trying to have it all true and yet not give an odd impression to Janet who was all agog now, listening. “Yes, he’s gone away—on business—up in some of those wild places out there….” Her voice trailed off vaguely. “And he hadn’t come back, and they couldn’t get trace of him.”

“You don’t say, M’s Ainslee!” said Janet, dropping a hot potato on the speckless linoleum so hard that it burst open and sent up a white film of steam and a shower of fluffy flakes. “Didn’t he even know his wife was dead?”

“No,” said Grandmother firmly, realizing that it must have been so. “No, and they’re—they’re afraid—well—they aren’t sure he’s living—!”

“Oh, M’s Ainslee!” said Janet. “Your son? Your youngest son? Now ain’t that awful?”

“Yes, Janet, it’s pretty awful!” sighed the old lady with a tremble in her voice. “But now, Janet, we mustn’t stop to talk. This child is just worn out with all she’s had to do, and we must nurse her up and get her strong again as fast as we can.”

“But ain’t you going to do nuthing about your son, M’s Ainslee?”

“Oh, certainly, we shall continue to do all that can possibly be done,” said Grandmother with dignity. “Now, Janet, just a couple of cookies. I’ll take the tray up, and you can bring the coffee. No, I won’t fall. Well—all right. Have it your way. I’ll run up and see if she’s ready, and you can bring the tray up. It’s ridiculous the way you treat me, like a baby! I’m not so old that I can’t carry a tray, I hope.” Grandmother started up the stairs, Janet discreetly waiting for a minute or two till summoned.

Sheila had come from the wonder of her bathroom and was standing, attired in the pink nightie and the floating green robe, gazing out the open window at the sea. She had thrown a big full bath towel over her shoulders, and her rich dark hair, fresh from a thorough shampooing, rippled down in waves and ringlets a little below her waist.

Grandmother stood for a second looking at her, the sweet profile just outlined against the distant blue of the sea and sky. The likeness to her boy Andrew was strong. Grandmother’s heart almost turned over at the sight. Yet there was something stronger about this young face than there had been about that boy Andrew’s face. She recognized it at once. Andrew had been like Grandmother’s only spoiled brother. She had always known it, and yet she had never been able to resist him. His fatal beauty and his winning ways had been the cause of his downfall.

Sheila felt her presence at the door and turned smiling.

“It’s so wonderful, Grandmother!” she said shyly.

“You feel a little better already, don’t you?” said Grandmother, practically, to keep down the sob in her throat. “Now get into bed quick! Or no, perhaps you’d better sit in this chair till you’ve eaten. I’ll draw up this little table. And here, I’ll get you a pair of slippers. There’s a pair of silly ones with feathers on them that Jessica brought me for my birthday. I’ll never wear them. Wouldn’t I look like an old fool wearing pale green slippers edged with white feathers? Here, sit down. Janet is coming with the tray.”

“Oh, but Grandmother,” protested Sheila, yielding to the gentle push and dropping down into the big wing chair, “you make me feel like a person in the fairy tales my mother used to tell me. All dressed up in silk things with feathers on my feet! And that sea out there and those flowers down in the garden—and
you
! Such a wonderful dream—Grandmother! I can’t think it’s true. I believe I’ve just fallen asleep out there under that trellis and dreamed it all, and pretty soon I’ll wake up and find I have to travel on.”

“You precious child!”

“But I mustn’t sit down in this lovely flowered chair with my wet hair. I just had to wash out the cinders, you know. I wasn’t fit to have around, not even for a day, as dirty as I was.”

“Well just put the towel over the back of the chair and spread this lovely hair out to dry. How pretty it curls!” said Grandmother, handling it like a child with a doll.

“My mother’s hair was like that,” said Sheila. “It was so black it had blue shadows in it.”

“Have you a picture of her?” asked Grandmother softly.

“Only a little tintype that a traveling photographer took,” said the girl sadly.

“I want to see it, sometime,” said Grandmother tenderly. “Perhaps we can have it enlarged somewhere.”

“Oh, could they do that?” asked Sheila. “I didn’t know it was possible.”

“Yes, they do wonderful things with old pictures now. Someday we’ll go to the city and see what can be done.”

Then Janet knocked at the door and brought in the tray. Grandmother noticed that she had waited to run out to the garden and pick a great pink rosebud and put it on the tray.

“That’s right, Janet,” she said with a grim old twinkle, and Janet set the tray down on the little table and cast a respectful smile of deference at the lovely girl who looked no longer like a little tramp.

Then Janet went away and Grandmother busied herself fussing around, getting water in a clear crystal bud vase for the rosebud.

“Oh, how good this soup is!” said the starved child, swallowing the last delicious drop and fishing out the last grain of rice from the bowl. “And all this chicken for me? It’s a great deal more than one person ought to eat in a meal. Why, this tray would have kept Mother and me for two or three days.”

“Oh, little girl, I’m so sorry!” sighed Grandmother.

“Please, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” said Sheila, lifting earnest blue eyes. “I just couldn’t help thinking how wonderful it was, and how glad Mother would have been for me. But Grandmother, there is something that troubles me very much. You wrote about other grandchildren. Father used to tell us there was one before he came away. There are others, too, perhaps, and what will they think of my being here?”

“What will they think? Why, welcome you, of course. What would they do? But not just at present, for they’re all away. Jessica was married last week and has gone on her wedding trip around the world. She was my son Robert’s daughter. They live in Boston. Her brother Donald is fourteen, and he’s at a camp in Canada. Rosalie and Annabelle Van Dyke, the twins, are sixteen. They and their twelve-year-old brother, Horace, have gone with their father and mother to Europe for a couple of months. They are my daughter Anna’s children. They live in Washington. Damaris Deane is Mary’s daughter. Her father died when she was only three years old. Damaris is studying music in Germany, and her mother is with her. They won’t be home for another year. That leaves only Dana and Gregory and Jean, the children of your father’s oldest brother, Max. Their mother is dead, and they are quite grown up. Dana is in a bonding house with his father in New York, Gregory is studying architecture abroad, and Jean is married and living in Mexico. So you needn’t worry about your cousins running in right away. I’ll get out the album by and by and show you their pictures. Then you will feel more at home with them. Now, little girl, get into that bed and sleep all afternoon. I’ll call you when it’s time for dinner.”

Grandmother took the tray and, slipping out, closed the door, and Sheila nestled down under the thin summer blanket and the soft percale sheet and wondered how she could possibly waste the time going to sleep in a wonderful place like this, with a lovely sea breeze blowing now and lifting the crisp snowy curtain, waving it like a flag, revealing white flitting sails against a blue, blue sky and a blue, blue sea.

And then, before she knew it, she was in the soundest sleep she had known for weeks.

When she woke, the sea was a shimmer of pink and gold and green, and the little white sails on the horizon seemed to slant eagerly as if they were striding home hastily before the night caught them and detained them from their goal. The rose in the crystal bud vase had opened its leaves halfway and was sending out a delightful fragrance, and just at the very first Sheila wondered if it wasn’t heaven after all that she had inadvertently stumbled into, and wouldn’t Mother be hovering around somewhere? Then she remembered that she was still on earth and must live out her life and meet a lot of problems before she got there, if there really was a heaven anywhere.

She drew a deep sigh and brushed her hand softly, appreciatively, across the fineness of the sheet. What would her grandmother think if she knew that the only sheets she had known for years were made out of flour sacks pieced together carefully! But they had been clean and sweet even if they were coarse and rough, and the memory of the bed her mother had always furnished for her was precious and brought the tears.

Then she saw Grandmother coming in the door, after a gentle tap, with her arms full of bright garments.

“I’ve been rummaging!” she announced. “I thought maybe it might rest you to have something new to put on that you had not worn before. I don’t want you unpacking tonight and getting your memories all stirred up and sorrowful. I want you to get rested first. And I found several dresses and some under things that Jessica left here. She said they were too short for her and she didn’t want them anymore. I think one little dress hasn’t even been worn. Jessica is wasteful that way. She buys a thing, and then if she doesn’t like herself in it she won’t wear it, no matter how much it cost. But I really believe you could wear this, you are so tiny. See!” And Grandmother spread out a little blue handmade voile on the bed. It was scattered over with blue embroidered butterflies. It had a smocked yoke and skirt and little smocked puffed sleeves.

“Oh, isn’t that lovely!” said Sheila, rising up to look at it and feel the butterflies. “Why, that’s the prettiest dress I ever saw!” she said happily, reaching over to lay an appreciative finger on one of the silken butterflies. “Do you mean I’m to put it on?”

“Yes, if it fits you. Here are several others. You might use anything you like. There are some under things, too. And over in the closet across the hall there are several pairs of shoes. Some are Jessica’s; some belong to Rosalie and Annabelle. I don’t know whether any of them will fit you, but you might try them. There are blue ones and white ones and silver ones and black. Take your choice; wear any you can. I’ve got to give them away to someone. They are just cluttering up the place. I meant to get rid of them before, only it was lonely here and it seemed kind of nice to leave them around. It seems as if some of the girls might run in any minute when I see their things, only of course I know they can’t this summer.”

“Oh, Grandmother, how wonderful!” said Sheila. “It gets more and more like a storybook.”

“Well, are you rested enough to get up for dinner, or would you rather just have a tray up here and then go on sleeping till morning?”

“Oh, I’m very rested!” declared the girl. “I want to get up. I’ve missed a whole afternoon of the wonderful sea and the flowers. I want to see the sun set. But I really don’t need any dinner. Why, I had a great dinner before I went to sleep! I had more than I ever had before in one single day in my whole life.”

“Well, you’ve got to eat some dinner, too. It’s time you made up on some of the lost meals. I’m sure your mother would want that for you. You are as thin as a breath of air, and I don’t want you to blow away now I’ve found you. Come, be brisk and come down or the sun will be set and you’ll miss the prettiest sight of the sea that comes in a day. It’s changing every minute now.”

So Sheila arose and plunged her hands into the pile of soft pink silk things, each one a wonder in itself to the girl who had never had any of the pretty things that other girls count as common necessities. She presently selected with awe an outfit.