Read Ebook: Larkspur by Abbott Jane

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Ebook has 930 lines and 57437 words, and 19 pages

The story of Ren?e LaDue finished, the officer stood very straight and looked anxiously at his listener.

Often during the story Mr. Everett had brushed something suspiciously like tears from his eyes. He rose quickly now and held out his hand.

"With what you boys are doing--and giving up--there isn't anything we who have to stay at home could refuse to do! Ren?e shall be taken care of--I promise you that! Nothing must be said about money. When the war is over and you return--then you shall come and claim her if you wish!"

The soldier's face beamed with pleasure.

"Oh, sir, that is splendid! You can't imagine how responsible I feel about my promise to Emile--or what a fine chap he was!"

Mr. Everett took a notebook and a pencil from his pocket.

"Please give me some of the facts concerning this child," he said in a business-like manner.

As Capt. Allan repeated them he entered each in the little book.

"And you know nothing more concerning Emile's family?"

"Only a little more--back in the hospital I talked with a French surgeon who had known Emile's father. He said he had been a sculptor--until he grew blind. I imagine they were very poor. The doctor said that Emile had been studying, too--in Paris. I remembered he had said something once to me that had made me think he was just waiting to finish his studies to keep his promise to his mother--to come to America to live!"

But at this point Patricia, too impatient to longer await her father's decision, burst into the room!

At her first introduction in the taxi-cab Patricia had undertaken to converse with Miss Ren?e in the stilted French she had learned at Miss Prindle's. But Ren?e had answered in perfect English.

Now, with the singing of the birds to tune their voices to a happy note, with the pretty flowers bringing a smile to Ren?e's sad little face, it was easy to bridge over the formality of "getting acquainted." Ren?e exclaimed in delight over the birds and the flowers and Pat rattled on like a small magpie, though all the while straining her ears to catch a single word or tone of her father's voice from the library.

She had her own way--sometimes a rather naughty way--of getting what she wanted from her family, but this was so different, and she wanted it so very much that she felt very anxious and uncertain! So after she had waited what seemed to her a very long time she abruptly led Ren?e back to the library. As they entered the room her father held out both hands. One took one of hers, with the other he drew Ren?e close to him.

"Oh, you dear, dear Daddy!" Then she threw her arms around Ren?e's neck. "Oh, I am so happy!" she was crying over and over, as though she had been the homeless one and Ren?e had taken her in.

"Don't forget me, Miss Everett," the soldier put in so comically that Patricia almost embraced him, too! Instead she shook both his hands delightedly. As Ren?e turned to Capt. Allan her lips trembled a little, for she had learned to love and trust him and already looked upon him as her guardian.

"Just you be brave and happy, little sister!" he said softly to her, "and as soon as I can I will come back!"

Then he shook hands with each one of them and Ren?e shyly kissed him. Mr. Everett went with him to the door. Patricia, knowing how hard the parting was for her little guest, seized her hand and dragged her toward a door at the end of the big hall.

"Let's go and find Melodia! I know something she's got!"

Only a few moments before Melodia had been telling the butler and the upstairs maid about "that Miss Pat's giving her orders so comical" and they were all laughing merrily over it when Miss Pat burst in upon them, leading Ren?e by the hand.

"Melodia, I have a guest only she's going to live with us! Please make lots of tarts, and can't Ren?e have just a little one now? Jasper, carry Miss Ren?e's trunk to my room--it's in the front hall! Maggie, please get a cot from the storeroom and put it right next to my bed." She turned toward the pantry. "I'll take some tarts now, Melodia, for Miss Ren?e is hungry! Don't all stand and stare like that, but please do as I tell you!" She helped herself as she spoke to two of the juiciest of the tempting tarts.

"Well, I never!" Jasper and Maggie and Melodia all exclaimed.

The three servants were deeply impressed by the grandness of Patricia's words and manner; and, too, Ren?e's sad little face won their hearts in an instant. Jasper coughed violently and hurried away to find the trunk. Melodia wiped her eye with the corner of her apron.

"The dear little thing! Well, we'll just make you happy and put flesh on your bones, bless your heart, missy!"

Patricia, satisfied that she had properly established Ren?e in the household, then led her upstairs to her own room. Ren?e, accustomed to the tiny chamber under the gable at St. Cloud, exclaimed with admiration when Patricia opened the door. Already Jasper had put down the queer old trunk and was busily engaged unfastening its buckles and straps. Maggie was watching, much disturbed.

"What's all this about?" interrupted Mr. Everett, coming at that moment to the door.

Patricia, Ren?e, Jasper and Maggie all turned to him. But Patricia, catching his coat, pulled him to her so that, by reaching on tip-toe, she could whisper in his ear:

Ren?e's eyes echoed Patricia's pleadings.

"Well, well, Maggie, we'll have to let them decide things, I guess," he laughed, "at least until Miss Penelope comes!"

In all the excitement Patricia had quite forgotten the approaching arrival of Aunt Pen.

Certainly little Ren?e had not time to be unhappy--each moment seemed to bring something new! While Patricia was explaining all about Aunty Pen and why she was coming, and her story had, of course, to include Celia and even the Lieut. Chauncey Meredith and his fall from his airplane, Maggie, scolding a little under her breath, was spreading snowy sheets over a bed-lounge which Patricia had drawn up close to her own little bed.

In the next moment, Aunt Pen again forgotten, Patricia was tumbling her own possessions from one of the drawers of the mahogany chest to make room for the contents of Ren?e's little trunk.

"We'll just share everything," she cried. "We'll have just the same halves! And let's hang up your dresses now!"

Poor Ren?e did not need the generous space of one-half of Patricia's wardrobe for her shabby dresses--they were only four in number and sadly worn! But she hung them away proudly, telling Patricia that no one in France now wore new things!

"Poor Susette used to spend hours mending my clothes, trying to make them hold together," laughed Ren?e, tenderly recalling her good old friend at St. Cloud.

"Tell me all about her!"

So, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the almost empty trunk, Ren?e described Susette and the cottage at St. Cloud and the wonderful flowers that had used to sell so well before the war, and the school where she had gone after her mother had died; how she and Emile always talked in English because her mother had made them promise, and how in the long, anxious, lonely days after Emile had gone, she had used to teach simple English words to Susette as they sat together among the flowers that nobody wanted to buy!

From the bottom of the trunk Ren?e drew a box covered with worn leather, tooled and colored like the binding of a beautiful book. So old was it that the colors blended and looked all blue and gold and green. Ren?e lifted it tenderly, as though it was precious!

Ren?e held the box very close to her.

"I don't know! It was my mother's and now it's Emile's and mine, or"--she carefully corrected herself--"I suppose it's just mine. But we don't know what is in it for we never had the key! My mother died before she could tell Emile where it was! And Emile made me promise before he went away that I would keep the box and never let anyone open it!"

"And you haven't even the teeniest idea what is in it? Didn't you ever just shake it?"

"Oh, lots of times!" confessed Ren?e. "But nothing makes any noise. And of course I would keep my promise to Emile."

Patricia rocked back and forth on her heels in joy.

"Emile said it must have been made by some Italian master years and years ago. I have this queer locket, too--it was my mother's," and from a little bag, wrapped in folds and folds of tissue paper, Ren?e drew a curious gold locket. "It is much too big to wear but I am very careful of it--it is all I have! I pretend that the box and the locket both once upon a time belonged to some royal prince in Venice! Once, when I was little, mother took Emile and me to Venice--she had been sick and she had to go where the sun was warm!"

Patricia, who had always considered herself an experienced and much traveled young lady, suddenly felt very small and young compared to Ren?e and all that she had done!

"Is Venice like the pictures--all colors like shells and funny boats and people singing?"

But Ren?e had no chance to answer. The doorbell clanged and in a moment they heard a cheery voice answering Mr. Everett's greeting.

"I'm certainly very glad you've come, Penelope; my family, which has so suddenly increased, is going to need a guiding hand!"

Penelope Everett, called by some a "strong-minded woman" because she had, since her college days, worn low-heeled shoes, boyish coats, comfortable hats and simple dresses, was Thomas Everett's favorite sister. Though many years younger than he, there was a directness about her, a something in the way she carried her head, poised squarely, that made him feel he could put anything upon her shoulders.

She gave a cheery laugh now in response to the seriousness of his manner.

Patricia and Ren?e had long since gone to bed, side by side. Ren?e had cuddled down under the soft coverings with a little sigh of content. Very tired with long days of travel she had dropped off to sleep quickly, while Patricia's voice, pitched to a low tone, had gone on in an endless account of "what we'll do to-morrow!" Aunt Pen, tiptoeing in a little later, had found Patricia's hand clasping Ren?e's tightly under the covers.

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