My Friend the Chauffeur
signed then. Until that's done the house isn't actually a monastery, so
he can strain a point and take us in, rather than the ladies should have
to travel further so late at night. I don't suppose we shall find very
luxurious accommodation, but--"
"It will be perfectly lovely," broke in Beechy, "and Maida, anyhow, will
feel quite at home."
"He won't accept payment, that's the worst of it," said Terry, "for we
shall make the poor man, who is all alone, a good deal of bother. Still,
I shall offer something for the charities of his Order, and he can't
refuse that."
We filed into the hall, lit only by the lantern in our host's hand, and
"Kid, Kidder, and Kiddest," charmed with the adventure, were
delightfully ready to be pleased with everything. We seemed to have
walked nearly half a kilometre before we were shown into small, bare
rooms, furnished only with necessaries, but spotlessly clean. Then beds
had to be made and water brought. Every one worked except the Prince,
and every one, with the same exception, forgot to be tired and ceased to
be cold in the pleasure of the queer midnight picnic. We had not dared
hope for anything to eat, but when our host proposed a meal of boiled
eggs, bread, and wine, the good man was well-nigh startled by the
enthusiastic acceptance of his guests.
A small room containing a table, and a pile of chairs against the wall,
was chosen for the banquet. Terry and Maida laid the table with the
dishes from the tea-basket, and a few more found in neighbouring
cupboards. Beechy boiled the eggs while our host unearthed the wine; the
Countess cut slices of hard, brown bread, and I added butter in little
hillocks.
Then we ate and drank; and never was a meal so good. We seemed to have
known each ether a long time, and already we had common jokes connected
with our past--that past which had been the present this morning. It was
after one o'clock when it occurred lo us that it was bedtime; and as at
last the three ladies flitted away down the dim corridor, Terry and I,
watching them, saw that something flitted after.
It was the little black dog of Airole.
PART II
TOLD BY BEECHY KIDDER
VII
A CHAPTER OF CHILDISHNESS
When I waked up that morning in the old monastery at San Dalmazzo, if
that's the way to call it, and especially to spell it, I really thought
for a few minutes that I must be dreaming. "There's no good getting up,"
I thought, "for if I do I shall somnambulize, and maybe break my rather
pleasing nose." Once, when I was a little girl, I fell down-stairs when I
was asleep, and made one of my front teeth come out. It was a front
tooth, and Mamma had promised me five dollars if I'd have it pulled; so
that was money in my pocket. But I haven't got any teeth to sell for
five dollars now, and it's well to be careful. Accordingly I just lay
still in that funny little iron bed, saying, "Beechy Kidder, is this
_you_?"
Perhaps it was because of all those bewildering impressions the day
before, or perhaps it was from having been so dead asleep that I felt
exactly as if I were no relation to myself. Anyhow, that was the way I
_did_ feel, and I began to be awfully afraid I should wake up back in
Denver months ago, before anything had happened, or seemed likely ever
to happen.
When I thought of Mamma and myself, as we used to be, I grew almost sure
that the things hadn't happened, because they didn't seem the kind of
things that could possibly happen to us.
Why, I didn't even need to shut my eyes to see our Denver house, for it
was so much more real than any other house I'd been in, or dreamed I'd
been in since, and especially more real than that tiny, whitewashed
room at the monastery with a green curtain of vines hanging over the
window.
A square, stone house, with a piazza in front (only people out of
America are so stupid, they don't know what I mean when I say "piazza");
about six feet of yard with some grass and flowers. Me at school; Mamma
reading novels with one eye, and darning papa's stockings with the
other. My goodness, what a different Mamma! When I thought of the
difference, I was surer than ever that I must be dreaming her as she is
now, and I had half a mind to go and peek into the next room to look,
and risk falling down-stairs bang into realities and Denver.
Would she have smooth, straight dark hair with a few threads of grey,
all streaked back flat to her head to please papa; or would she have
lovely auburn waves done on a frame, with a curl draped over her
forehead? Would her complexion be just as nice, comfortable, motherly
sort of complexion, of no particular colour; or would it be pink and
white like rose-leaves floating in cream? Would she have the kind of
figure to fit the corsets you can pick up at any shop, ready made for
fifty-nine and a half cents, and the dresses Miss Pettingill makes for
ten dollars, with the front breadth shorter than the back? Or would she
go in at the waist like an hour-glass and out like an hour-glass, to fit
three hundred-franc stays in Paris, and dresses that would be tight for
_me_?
Poor Mamma! I'd made lots of fun of her these last few months, if they
were real months, I said to myself; and if more real months of that kind
should come, I'd probably make lots of fun of her again. I am _like_
that; I can't help it. I suppose it's what Papa used to call his
"originality," and Mamma his "cantankerousness," coming out in me. But
lying there in the narrow bed, with the dream-dawn fluttering little
pale wings at the window, I seemed suddenly to understand how hard
everything had been for her.
At some minutes, on some days, you _do_ understand people with a queer
kind of clearness, almost as if you had created them yourself--even
people that you turn up your nose at, and think silly or uninteresting
at other times, when your senses aren't sharpened in that magic sort of
way. My "God-days," are what I call those strange days when I can
sympathize with every one as if I'd known their _whole_ history and all
their troubles and thoughts and struggles, ever since they were born. I
call them that, not to be irreverent, but because I suppose God _always_
feels so; and the little spark of Him that's in every human being--even
in a naughty, pert thing like me--comes out in us more on some days than
on others, though only for a few minutes at a stretch even then.
Well, my spark burned up quite brightly for a little while in the dawn,
as I was thinking of Mamma.
I don't suppose she could ever have been in love with Papa. I guess she
must have married him because her parents were poor, or because she was
too kind hearted to say no. Anyway, it must have been horrid for her to
know that he was rich enough to let her do anything she liked, but
wouldn't let her do anything nice, because he was a Consistent Democrat,
and didn't believe in show or "tomfoolery."
I'm sure I couldn't explain what a Consistent Democrat really is; but
Papa's idea of being it was to scorn "society people," not to have
pretty clothes or many servants, to look plain and speak plainly, always
to tell the whole truth, especially if you would hurt anybody's feelings
by doing so, and not to spend much money except on uninteresting books.
Mamma would have loved better than anything to be a society leader, and
have her name appear often in the papers, like other ladies in Denver
who, she used to tell me, didn't come from half as good family as she
did. But Papa wouldn't let her go out much, and she didn't know any of
the people she wanted to know--only quite common ones whose husbands
kept stores or had other businesses which she didn't consider refined.
I'm afraid I was never much comfort to poor Mamma either. That
cantankerousness of mine which makes me see how funny people and things
are, always came between us, and I expect it always will. I must have
been born old.
Her only real pleasure was reading novels on the sly, all about smart
society and the aristocracy, but especially English aristocracy. She
simply revelled in such stories; and when Papa died suddenly without
time to tie up his money so as to force Mamma to go on doing what _he_
wanted, and not what _she_ wanted, all the rest of her life, the first
thing that occurred to her was how to make up for lost time.
"We'll travel in Europe for a year or two," she said to me, "and when we
come back we'll just show Denver society people that we're _somebody_."
That was all she thought of in the beginning, but when we'd gone East to
Chicago for a change, and were staying at a big hotel there, a new idea
came into her head. Partly it was from seeing so many smart-looking
young women having a good time every minute of their lives, and feeling
what was the use of being free to enjoy herself at last, with plenty of
money, when she was dowdy and not so very young any more? (I could tell
just what was in her mind by the wistful way she looked at gorgeous
ladies who had the air of owning the world, with a fence
around it.) And partly it was seeing an advertisement in a
newspaper.
Mamma didn't mention the advertisement to me at first. But when she'd
been away one morning alone on a secret errand she stammered and
fidgetted a little, and said she had something to explain to me. Then it
all came out.
She'd been to call on a wonderful French madame who could make a woman
of thirty-eight (that's Mamma's Bible age) look twenty-five, and she
hoped I wouldn't lose respect for her as my mother or think her
frivolous and horrid if she put herself into the madame's hands for a
few weeks. I couldn't help laughing, but Mamma cried, and said that
she'd never had a real good time since she was grown up. She did long to
have one at last, very much, if only I'd let her do it in peace.
I stopped laughing and almost cried, myself; but I didn't let her see
that I wanted to. Instead, I asked what would be the sense of _looking_
twenty-five, anyhow, when everybody would know she _must_ be more, with
a daughter going on seventeen.
Mamma hadn't thought of that. She seemed years older than ever for a
minute; and then she put her hand in mine. Hers was as cold as ice.
"Would you mind going back a little, darling?" she asked. "It would be
_so_ kind and sweet of you, and it would make all the difference to me."
"Going back?" I repeated. "Whatever _do_ you mean?"
It made her dreadfully nervous to explain, because she was afraid I'd
poke fun at her, but she did get out the idea finally. "Going back" was
to bring on my second childhood prematurely. Thirteen was a nice age,
she thought, because many girls get their full growth then; and if I
wasn't more than thirteen she could begin life over again at
twenty-nine.
"What, let down my hair and wear my dresses short?" I asked.
She admitted that was what I'd have to do.
I thought for a whole minute, and at last I just couldn't bear to
disappoint her. But all the same, I reminded myself, I might as well
make a good bargain while I was about it.
"If I do what you want," said I, "you'll have to be mighty nice to me. I
must be given my way about important things. If you ever refuse to do
what I like, after I've done so much for you, I'll just turn up my hair
and put on a long frock. Then everybody'll see how old I am."
She would have promised anything, I guess; and that very afternoon she
gave me three lovely rings, and a ducky little bracelet-watch, when we
were out shopping for short clothes and babyfied hats. Soon we moved
away from that hotel to one on the north side, where nobody had seen us;
and the first thing I knew, I was a little girl again.
It certainly was fun. To really appreciate being a child, you ought to
have been grown up in another state of existence, and remember your