A Modern Cinderella
“It’s a pity one can’t stir out of the house without something happening,” sobbed the mistress. “And we’re both so tired.”
“There dear, come up stairs.” Florence took Mrs. Borden by the arm, and they ascended together. “Now I’ll go and look after Jack.”
She put a big apron over her dress. Jack sat on the bath room floor crying.
“Get up and take off those dirty things. Come, your father will soon be home and I don’t know what he’ll do to you,” said his aunt.
“He may strap me if he likes, but I ain’t going to be called a snotnosed scabby sneak of a devil – ”
“Hush! hush! I won’t listen to such a talk – ”
“ – And he slapped me in the face, and I kicked his shins good, and then we fit and I give him a punch in the belly and a good bunk in the eye – ”
“Stop Jack, I won’t hear another word. Let me get you washed up. There comes your father.”
Jack’s nose had stopped bleeding and he was washed and put in some clean clothes. Mrs. Borden laid aside her wrap and hat and went through to the nursery. The peppermint must have been a sedative to nerves and stomach for the twins looked up with an angelic smile and went on house building. Mrs. Seymour made the explanations.
“What could Marilla have been doing? She was well enough when we went out.”
Miss Armitage gave the hand she held a gentle squeeze and she saw the eyelids quiver.
“I’m sure I am very much obliged to you both. I was sorry to miss you that day you called, Miss Armitage. Oh dear, how you must have been frightened! And poor Aunt Hetty! Is it really true – ”
“The doctor couldn’t tell the absolute danger so soon – ”
“Oh, I think it has been coming on some time. She’s dragged her feet and she had a quick, almost spiteful way of walking, if one may call it that. She protested against people slouching round without animation enough to lift their feet. And some days she wouldn’t come down to any meal. Well, she’s a pretty old lady; we’ve always let her have her way.”
Jack came into the room rather meek but a handsome little fellow in spite of a lump on his forehead. He had run out of doors without waiting to hear the result of Marilla’s fall.
“Well, Captain!” said his father, holding out his hand.
Mrs. Seymour went home after proffering her services if she should be needed through the night. The dinner bell rang and Miss Borden insisted the guest must go down to dinner and she would stay with the children.
“We’re having our dinner a little late this evening on account of a guest; otherwise I would accept. I can stay half an hour longer. Then if you won’t mind my coming around about nine to hear the doctor’s verdict.”
“Oh, you are very sympathetic. Thank you. I only hope Marilla won’t have a bad time as she did last summer. Why she’s never fainted since.”
Jack behaved beautifully at the table. No one spoke of the fight. But he kept up a shivery thought of wondering if the ball he had thrown at Marilla had really hurt her. It wasn’t a hard ball, at least not as hard as they had sometimes in the street.
No one appeared very hungry. Mrs. Borden went up to look after Aunt Hetty who seemed disinclined to talk and only wanted a cup of tea. Mr. Borden looked at Marilla who had fallen asleep. Then he went through to the other room and took Jack on his knee.
“Now let’s hear about the fight,” he said, but his voice didn’t seem very stern.
Jack really wanted to cry. He felt sort of bruised and beaten though he had knocked down his adversary and would have stamped on him if his mother had not appeared at that moment and carried him off.
“Well, you see” – and the boy winked very hard.
“Who begun it?”
“Why, that Patsy’s a reg’lar bum! He’s called me names – he plays hookey too, and he tried to trip me up and I give him a left-hander, and he called me a stinking pup and ever so many nasty names and then we went at it. Papa, you may strap me if you want to, but if I hadn’t fit the boys would have made fun of me and called me sissy, and we went at it like fury. He made my nose bleed, and I guess I gave him a black eye; and I kicked his shins – he’s got fat legs. He’s just a bounder and teacher said he’d wind up in the reform school. I just wish he would!” with an angry zest.
“How do boys learn such shocking talk?” asked Aunt Florence, “When they never hear it at home, and as for fighting – ”
“It is in the outside air and perhaps like measles runs through boyhood. Jack, I want you to stand up for yourself though I don’t admire street fights.”
“But I won’t be called nasty names, and he said I was a sneak of a devil – ”
“Try and keep out of the way of such boys. But if you must fight stand up to it boldly. I think you didn’t get the worst of it, but I guess it’s good your mother came along just then, and now little boy you had better go to bed.”
Jack was very glad nothing had been asked him about Marilla. He was tired and drowsy. But Aunt Florence said, “Jack I think you were a very bad boy.”
Dr. Baker came in and took another look at Marilla whose pulse was still very fluttering.
“What do you suppose it is?” asked Mrs. Borden, anxiously.
“The child has a weak heart. Perhaps no organic disease at present, and if she gets through the next two or three years safely all may go well with her. But she ought not have any severe strain. Do you know anything about her family?”
“She hasn’t any, I took her from that Bethany Home. She’s a nice, willing, pleasant girl and a splendid hand with babies. But she was with Miss Armitage all through that awful time we had with the children teething, and the babies are good. I resolved I’d never make children so troublesome as Jack was, waiting on them hand and foot. I’ve had a different system with them.”
“The system seems to have worked well, but I think you need a stronger nursemaid.”
“I’ve never let her lift them, I knew it was not safe for them,” laughing. “Though think how poor children carry babies about; but now tell me about Aunt Hetty.”
“I think it is the beginning of the end. You can’t quite tell, but she’s pretty well worn out with the years, and she must have a steady nurse. A hospital would be best.”
“Yes, we will talk that over.”
“Have you any one for tonight?”
“No. Is it as bad as that?” and Mrs. Borden turned pale.
“I should advise an emergency nurse for a week or so; by that time you can make some plans.”
Mrs. Vanderveer was comfortable, but she did not want to be left alone.
“Oh, isn’t it dreadful, Florence, that this should happen just now. If it only could have waited until Christmas,” Mrs. Borden said with tears in her eyes. “I meant you should have such a happy wedding. You’ve always been like an own sister to me.”
“Well, we won’t worry tonight. Only – ”
Miss Armitage came in and heard the story through.
“Let me telephone at once to the nurses’ home, then you will feel relieved. And perhaps it would be a good thing to send Marilla to me for a little while again.”
“I cannot do without a nurse girl.”
“But a week or two may restore Marilla.”
The nurse came, a wholesome middle aged body who had been for weeks with a helpless paralytic. And so the midnight found them all comfortable. Marilla was left on the lounge. Miss Armitage sat a long while in her soft wrapper planning about the child she felt she must rescue. Oh, she did want her. She did not try to give any reason for the love that had stolen almost unaware in her heart, or the faith that this child would not disappoint her. Every year she was growing older, every year she longed more for some one of her very own. Why should she not play fairy godmother in earnest? She must have Dr. Richard’s verdict.
For Mrs. Borden with many kindly qualities looked at matters only as they applied to herself. When Marilla was eighteen she would come to the freedom of a bound-out girl, too old to begin another life, settled in a rut – if she lived. Was she not one of the little ones that might be rescued and live out a higher life? There were many who could not, but she felt she must go carefully.
Mrs. Holmes proved an admirable nurse and Aunt Hetty took to her in an astonishing manner. She was attractive to the children, as well, who greeted her with a smile.
On the next day Dr. Baker admitted the paralysis was gaining rapidly and thought she could not last long. That evening she said to the nurse, “Send Mr. Borden up here, and you stay down with the ladies.”
He came up and greeted her cordially, hoping for better things, as friends are wont to say.
“No, John, there will not be any better, so we won’t indulge in make believes. Carry and James were quite sure this way of living wasn’t good for me. They wanted me to buy a house and make it over to them and they would care for me the rest of my life. I’ve lived with Carry, paid her good board, too, so I knew what that would be. I couldn’t live quite alone, you see – I always wanted some one round that I could see if I wanted to. Old people do get queer. So when I had to foreclose here I made you this offer. You’re the only one of them all who has not asked me outright for money, and I honor you for it. Your mortgage here is twenty-three hundred.”
“Yes,” he said with a vague sort of hope that she wasn’t going to ask him to settle it.
“I want you to get it cancelled; I’ll give you the order. I’ve meant to do this the last year. Carry worried so at me that I went away with her and felt none the better for it. I’d rather staid at home with Bridget. So you see to that at once. And I want to make a new will.”
“Aunt Hetty! Well, I don’t know what to say,” and his tone showed his surprise. “Don’t say anything.” She gave her little cackle of a laugh that always had a sound of derision in it. “You know I can’t take any of it with me, and I’d like to know it will make few people pleased and happy. I’m going to make you executor, so get some one else to write out the will. I fixed it to my liking today. You’ve all been very good to put up with my whims and queernesses. Old people don’t like too much advice, especially where money is concerned. Look in the second drawer there – in a long envelope.”
“Thank you for this expression of your satisfaction. The babies and Jack may have been a nuisance at times.”
“But that little girl’s been good enough to make up for any annoyance – not that there’s been much. Jack’s a smart, funny little fellow. You know they’re all more or less bad, but they grow up pretty fair. There now, I’m tired.”
Mr. Borden wished her a kindly good-night and went down stairs to recount the wonderful interview.
“Oh, John!” Mrs. Borden leaned her head down on her husband’s shoulder. “What a streak of good fortune! Now we really do own the house free and clear, I thought our summering would be quite moderate but it wasn’t. Still it did the babies an immense deal of good after they got over their awful time. And they’re so nice and well now, and are growing better looking all the time. If Marilla only could make their hair curl! It’s so stringy, and we haven’t worried at Aunt Hetty for what she did or what she didn’t do, and weren’t snappy when she found fault. I used to think she needn’t have rung for Marilla quite so much, but the child never minded running up and down.”
“How has she been today?”
“Well, I don’t just know; Dr. Baker said she must keep pretty still, so she’s laid on the old lounge, but the babies would crawl over her. It does seem as if we must have someone else – an older person, though some of them object to taking out children. But if we want to get much sewing done – ”
“I think I’ll have a seamstress for a week or so,” said Aunt Florence, “time goes on so fast.”
Marilla had gone up stairs to her own bed, where Bridget had crooned over her in tender Irish fashion.
“An’ I’m sore afraid them babies’ll be the death of you, poor lamb! They drag on you so, and their chatter would drive me crazy.”
“But they’re so funny.”
“I don’t call it funny with their hundred and fifty wants,” sniffed Bridget.
Marilla turned faint now and then but for several days she was not sent out with the children. Miss Armitage came over every day to inquire about both invalids. Mrs. Vanderveer dozed a good deal and the numbness seemed crawling further up her body.
“She may have another stroke and she may go just this way,” said Mrs. Holmes, “I wouldn’t give her more than a month at the longest. I’ve seen it so many times. But it is merciful for them not to last years.”
It was mid-October then. The seamstress proved a treasure. Garments were completed and laid away.
“I want most of the work finished up in November,” said Mrs. Borden, “then we can plan all the other matters.”
“I shall have to look up some one else. I want a nurse to take up the children in the morning and wash and dress them, and they must go out. They’re losing all their lovely weather. Marilla doesn’t seem to get along at all. If she’s going to develop some heart trouble she will just be good for nothing. Of course, when I took her she seemed healthy enough, and it was the best thing to do then. John has had some good luck this fall and we don’t need to think of saving up money for the mortgage. I could afford a regular nurse, and it would ease me up so much. I don’t suppose they’d take Marilla back at the Home.”
“Talk to John about it if; we could find a new place for her. Why, she would make a nice little waitress. If you could keep three girls,” laughingly.
“Dear me, we must not spread out too rapidly, and somehow I’d hate to give her up. She trains the children so nicely. And have you noticed how sort of gentlemanly Jack is growing toward her? He was real rude.”
Jack had experienced many qualms of conscience about throwing the ball that day, but Marilla made no reference to it. Still she might tell Bridget, she and Bridget were such cronies, and Bridget would make an awful fuss.
“Marilla,” he said one night when she was getting him ready for bed – “I didn’t mean to hurt you that day with the ball – you know. I didn’t think girls were so tender.”
“I was tired and there had been something stopping my breath like, now and then, maybe it wasn’t the ball.”
“You were good not to tell on a fellow. I’ll never, never hurt you again, nor pinch you, nor be ugly to you. You’re so sweet, Marilla,” and he clasped his arms around her neck, kissing her.
CHAPTER XI
THE ARK OF LOVE
The glowing golden October weather had given place to several lowering days. Furnaces and grates were started up, and overcoats brought out, and pedestrians hurried along. Even children did not stop to play, for now a cold drizzle had set in.
It was very warm and cheery in Miss Armitage’s library. There was a fire in the grate, a pot of beautiful red carnations on one stand, a great vase of roses on the other, and a dainty tea table set out with Wedgewood. Thursday afternoon she was always at home. From some cause there had been very few in. Jane came and put two big lumps of cannel coal on the fire and said a few words, then went to answer the ring at the door; it was Dr. Richards.
“I’m glad to see you,” she said. “Will you please light a burner or two?”
“Oh, no, let us sit in this mysterious light and watch the blaze leaping over and around those black hillocks. Have you been busy today?”
“Not very. Some days I don’t feel in a working humor. I had only two calls this afternoon. Will you have a cup of tea?”
“Yes; when have you been to the Bordens?”
“Yesterday.”
“And how are the invalids?”
“Mrs. Vanderveer is sinking in a comatose state; she doesn’t suffer, which is a great blessing toward the last. As for Marilla” – she made a pause.
“Well – ” inquiringly.
“I’m not satisfied, she has such a blue, tired look. But she is about as usual. Dr. Richards, I want her.”
Something in the tone touched him. It seemed the cry of motherhood.
“Well, wouldn’t they give her up?”
“I really think they would; a friend came to see if they did not want her nursemaid, a nice well trained girl of twenty; an excellent seamstress. She is going to California. Mrs. Borden told me this as we were down in the hall. Dr. Baker said something about the child’s health that rather startled her. But before we could have any discussion another visitor called. She thinks Marilla doesn’t have anything much to do; but the babies are a constant care. They want to be entertained every minute of the time. Violet is developing quite a temper and slaps her little nurse. All her mother said was ‘Violet, that’s naughty.’ But you should have seen Pansy speak some Mother Goose rhymes. Marilla had been training her. The gestures, the roll of the eyes, the coquettish turn of the head was the daintiest thing you ever saw. Then she repeated – ‘Where are you going, my pretty maid?’ and she had a little milk pail on her arm, and she managed to keep the two parts wonderfully distinct – it was remarkable in a child not three years old, and when she said – ‘Then I won’t marry you, my pretty maid’ and answered so pertly – ‘Nobody asked you, sir, she said,’ it would have done credit to an exhibition. Her mother sprang up and kissed her rapturously, crying – ‘Isn’t she the dearest and sweetest thing and the smartest! Think of her learning that and acting it off so completely, and not three years old! She is smarter than Violet’ – and then Violet set up such a howl! Her mother pacified her by saying Marilla should tell her a piece, and after several efforts Cinderella did induce her to say by a great deal of prompting ‘Milkman, Milkman, where have you been?’ Think of the wear on the child’s nerves, and she looked so tired. I really couldn’t stand it a moment longer. They think she has nothing to do but just amuse those two strong irrepressible children who climb over her and torment her in every fashion. I can’t stand it. I hardly slept last night thinking of it.”
“Can’t you bring her over for a visit?”
“I thought of proposing that. If I could persuade her to transfer the child to me – ”
“But if she gets another nurse?”
“Yes, I must try. The strain on her is too great, and now for almost a week she has not been out of the house; Mrs. Borden bewails it for the childrens’ sake. She thinks only of them with a mother’s selfishness, and she doesn’t give Marilla credit for these pretty ways or their intelligence. She is just their nurse girl. It is a cruel waste of the child’s gifts.”
“I’d like to see Dr. Baker; most of all I’d like to see Marilla, but it wouldn’t be etiquette to call.”
“I’ll go tomorrow with courage enough to have a gentle talk or a straight out one,” said Miss Armitage resolutely. “We try to save other lives, why not this one? And this one is dear to me. It has so much of promise in it, and life gets lonely sometimes.”
He longed to come into it, but he kept his promise. Until she made some sign he must be content with friendship. He rose abruptly and said he must be going. She did not detain him.
It was raining a-softly now and he hurried along. His office was in a little ell part in a rather inviting looking house, and he took his meals with the tenant. The office boy was on the lookout for him, it was time he went home.
“There’s a gentleman in there waiting for you,” he said with his good-night.
The gentleman was comfortably ensconced in the Morris chair, smoking a cigar. Doctor Richards took a second look.
“Why, Lorimer!” he exclaimed. “Where have you dropped from? I haven’t seen you in an age – but I’m glad, old fellow; I was feeling rather down; I should have had a gay presentiment.”
“Remembering old times when we were both bloated aristocrats, favorites with the gods.”
“And are now earning daily bread,” laughed the doctor. “At least I am and trying to help suffering humanity. Isn’t that neatly put?”
“I don’t know whether I can claim all that; now and then I get some poor fellow’s affairs out of a snarl and make him pay for it, and one end of something has drifted here to Newton and I’m after that, but I thought I’d hunt you up first. I’ve been here a good half hour.”
“And supper is ready in the house. Then we will have a good hour before any one drops in. Come in,” and he opened a side door into a hall.
There were three persons at the table, an elderly couple and a woman in the thirties. They made Mr. Lorimer cordially welcome and the supper was inviting. The guest asked some questions about Newton which was a quiet rather old fashioned town quite set in its ways.
Afterward they settled themselves comfortably in the office.
“I’ve come to hunt up some one – do you know anything about a Bethany Home for orphans, girls, I believe.”
Dr. Richards roused from his lazy position. “Yes, I know about it, though I never been on the staff. Why?”
“I want to learn about a child placed there four or five years ago. Let me see,” referring to a memorandum, “name, Marilla Bond; mother and father died in this town.”
“Marilla Bond. Yes. I know the child. What of her?”
“I’ll begin at the very first. Hardly two years ago Peter Schermerhorn died at the age of ninety-eight. He was the black sheep of an otherwise respectable family, went off and spent his portion in riotous living, afterward bought a tract of ground above Harlem, turned hermit, raised geese and ducks and pigs, married and had three daughters and they in turn married, glad, I suppose, to get away from the penurious living. So it went on. He had to give up the pigs and geese, did a little gardening and two years ago died without a will. Oddly enough he had kept a family record which has been of great service to us. The old shanty was a disgrace, the ground valuable. The city was bringing up one of its fine avenues and a syndicate made a proffer for the land. Of course the heirs soon scented this out, and our firm has been trying to settle the estate so the property can be turned into money, and a good deed given. We have found about everybody, I believe, but the mother of this child who is in very direct descent, eluded us a long while.”
“And this child is one of the heirs?” in surprise.
“Exactly. Her mother came here after her marriage. The father was killed in some machinery mishap. The mother was in a store, a bakery, I believe, and dying, gave her little girl to the friend she had lived with, and the friend married and went out to Easton. We found she did not take the child with her but put her in this Bethany Home with some important papers. So we want the child and the papers.”
“The child was twelve, a year ago September. She was bound-out to some fairly nice people as a little nursemaid. And an heiress!” in a tone of glad surprise.
“Well not to any great extent. There are a good many heirs it seems – ten thousand or so. But we had to know whether she was living or not on account of the title.”
His little Cinderella! Truly this was a fairy story. “Oh, are you quite sure?” he said.
“Oh, there’s no doubt, if she is the true heir. But the woman at Easton attested a very straight story and knew of the husband’s death, though she had not known him personally. The money is on the mother’s side, you see, so his death is neither here nor there. And now – can’t we go out and interview this place and the keeper?”
“Hardly tonight. The matron is a rather rigid person I believe. We had best tackle her by daylight, and the child is almost in this vicinity. A rather unusual child I think, very sweet natured. Oh, I can’t express all my delight. She is the kind of girl that ought to be educated, that should live in an atmosphere of love, and she is not really strong enough to take the rough and tumble of life. Oh, I can’t tell you how glad I am.” Lorimer surveyed his friend with a rather humorous smile. They had been chums during a summer in Switzerland and Holland, but he had not thought Richards much given to either love or romance.
Then they branched off into old times when both had been rather wasteful. Lorimer was working hard to redeem that youthful extravagance; Dr. Richards cared nothing at all for the moneyed end of life.
He would fain have kept his friend all night but Lorimer had engaged his room at a hotel. They were to meet as soon as possible in the morning.
Bethany Home was quite in the suburbs, reached by a walk after one had left the trolley. The house was a big rambling place to which there had been made several additions. It had been a gift from a benevolently disposed woman, with a small endowment that was occasionally added to. There was quite a spacious garden and an abundance of rose vines.
