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Read Ebook: The Poor Little Rich Girl by Gates Eleanor
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Ebook has 1565 lines and 54642 words, and 32 pages
Jane, having unbuttoned the riding-coat, pulled at the small black boots. She was also talking to herself, for her lips moved.
Gwendolyn's bed stood midway of the nursery, partly hidden by a high tapestried screen. It was a beautiful bed, carved and enamelled, and panelled--head and foot--with woven cane. But to Gwendolyn it was, by day, a white instrument of torture. She gave it a glance of disfavor now, and refrained from pursuing her idea.
When the muslin dress was donned, and a pink satin hair-bow replaced the black one that bobbed on Gwendolyn's head when she rode, she returned to the window and sat down. The seat was deep, and her shiny patent-leather slippers stuck straight out in front of her. In one hand she held a fresh handkerchief. She nibbled at it thoughtfully. She was still wondering about "They."
Thomas looked cross when he came in to serve her noon dinner. He arranged the table with a jerk and a bang.
"So old Royle up and outed, did she?" he said to Jane.
"Hush!" counseled Jane, significantly, and rolled her eyes in the direction of the window-seat.
Gwendolyn stopped nibbling her handkerchief.
"And our plans is spoiled," went on Thomas. "Well, ain't that our luck! And I suppose you couldn't manage to leave a certain party--"
Gwendolyn had been watching Thomas. Now she fell to observing the silver buckles on her slippers. She might not know who "They" were. But "a certain party"--
"Leave?" repeated Jane, "Who with? Not alone, surely you don't mean. For something's gone wrong already to-day, as you'll see if you'll use your eyes. And a fuss or a howl'd mean that somebody'd hear, and tattle to the Madam, and--"
Thomas said something under his breath.
At this point, Gwendolyn glanced up--just in time to see Thomas regarding Jane with a broad grin. And Jane was smiling back at him, her face so suffused with blushes that there was not a freckle to be seen.
It was Gwendolyn's turn to color. She got down quickly and came forward.
"Sh!" warned Thomas. He busied himself with laying the silver.
"Now, whatever do you think I was talkin' about?" demanded Jane, roughly. "You dance, don't you, at Monsoor Tellegen's, of a Saturday afternoon? Well, so do I when I get a' evenin' off,--which isn't often, as you well know, Miss. And now your dinner's ready. So eat it, without any more clackin'."
Gwendolyn climbed upon the plump rounding seat of a white-and-gold chair.
Jane settled down nearby, choosing an upholstered arm-chair--spacious, comfort-giving. She lolled in it, at ease but watchful.
Jane giggled. "Potter's a sharp one," she declared. "But, oh, you should've been behind a door just now when you-know-who and I had a little understandin'."
"Eh?" he inquired, working his black brows excitedly. "How was that?"
Gwendolyn went calmly on with her mutton-broth. She already knew each detail of the forth-coming recital.
"Well," began Jane, "she played her usual trick of startin' off without so much as a word to me, and I just up and give her a tongue-lashin'."
Gwendolyn's spoon paused half way to her expectant pink mouth. She stared at Jane. "Oh, I didn't see that," she exclaimed regretfully. "Jane, what is a tongue-lashing?"
"But I took just one little spoonful," protested Gwendolyn, earnestly. "I wanted more, but Thomas held it 'way up, and--"
"Do you want to be sick?" demanded Jane. "And have a doctor come?"
Gwendolyn raised frightened eyes. A doctor had been called once in the dim past, when she was a baby, racked by colic and budding teeth. She did not remember him. But since the era of short clothes she had been mercifully spared his visits. "N-n-no!" she faltered.
Gwendolyn put up a hand and pushed the proffered dish aside.
"Now, no temper," warned Jane, rising. "Too much meat ain't good for children. Your mamma herself would say that. Come! See that nice potatoes and cream gravy on your plate. And there you set cryin'!"
Thomas had an idea. "Shall I fetch the cake?" he asked in a loud whisper.
Jane nodded.
He disappeared--to reappear at once with a round frosted cake that had a border of pink icing upon its glazed white top. And set within the circle of the border were seven pink candles, all alight.
"Oh, look! Look!" cried Jane, excitedly, pulling Gwendolyn's hand away from her eyes. "Isn't it a beautiful cake! You shall have a bi-i-ig piece."
Those seven small candles dispelled the gloom. With tears on her cheeks, but all eager and smiling once more, Gwendolyn blew the candles out. And as she bent forward to puff at each tiny one, Jane held her bright hair back, for fear that a strand might get too near a flame.
"Perhaps all the little lights go up under the big lamp-shade," went on Gwendolyn, too absorbed to listen to Thomas. "And make a big light." She started to get down from her chair to investigate.
Gwendolyn ate her slice daintily, using a fork.
Jane also ate a slice--holding it in her fingers. "There's ways of managin' a fairly jolly afternoon," she said from the depths of the arm-chair.
"You're speakin' of--er--?" asked Thomas, picking up cake crumbs with a damp finger-tip.
"Uh-huh."
"A certain party would have to go along," he reminded.
"Shall I telephone for--?" Thomas brought a finger-bowl.
Gwendolyn stood up. A ride meant the limousine, with its screening top and little windows. The limousine meant a long, tiresome run at good speed through streets that she longed to travel afoot, slowly, with a stop here and a stop there, and a poke into things in general.
Her crimson cheeks spoke rebellion. "I want a walk this afternoon," she declared emphatically.
"I'm seven to-day," Gwendolyn went on, the tips of her fingers in the small basin of silver while her face was turned to Jane. "I'm seven and--and I'm grown-up."
"And you're splashin' water on the table-cloth. Look at you!"
"So," went on Gwendolyn, "I'm going to walk. I haven't walked for a whole, whole week."
"You can lean back in the car," began Jane enthusiastically, "and pretend you're a grand little Queen!"
"Rich little girls don't hike along the streets like common poor little girls," informed Jane.
Jane went to shake her frilled apron into the gilded waste-basket beside Gwendolyn's writing-desk. "You can telephone any time now, Thomas," she said calmly.
Jane gave a gasp of smothered rage. The reddish eyes blazed. "Do you want me to send for a great black bear?" she demanded.
At that Gwendolyn quailed. "No-o-o!"
Jane shot a glance toward Thomas. It invited suggestion.
"Let her take something along," he said under his breath, nodding toward a glass-fronted case of shelves that stood opposite Gwendolyn's bed.
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