My Friend the Chauffeur
sensations. It was something like that with me, and my life was almost
as good as a play. I could say and do dreadfully naughty things, which
would have been outrageous for a grown-up young lady of nearly
seventeen. And _didn't_ I do them all? I never missed a single chance,
and I flatter myself that I haven't since.
The French madame made a real work of art of Mamma. The progress was
lovely to watch. She kept herself shut up in her room all day,
pretending to be an invalid, and drove out in a veil to the madame's.
Then, when she was finished, we went right away from Chicago to New
York, where we meant to stay for a while till we sailed for Europe.
Mamma hadn't been East before, since she was a girl of twenty, for that
was when she married Papa, and he took her to live in Denver. We bought
lots of beautiful things in New York, and Mamma enjoyed herself so much,
being pretty and having people stare at her, that she was almost sick
from excitement.
When we'd seen all the sights and were tired of shopping, she remembered
that she'd got a niece staying in the country not far away, on the
Hudson River. I'd heard Mamma speak of her sister, who, when seventeen,
had married a Savant (whatever that is), and had gone to California soon
afterwards, because she was delicate. But evidently the change hadn't
done her much good, because she died when her baby was born. The Savant
went on living, but he couldn't love his daughter properly, as she'd
been the cause of her mother's death. Besides, he wasn't the kind of man
to understand children, so when Madeleine was nine or ten, he sent her
to a school--a very queer school. It was kept by a Sisterhood; not nuns
exactly, because they were Protestants, but almost as good or as bad;
and an elderly female cousin of the Savant's was the head of the
institution.
There Madeleine Destrey had been ever since, though Mamma said she must
be nineteen or twenty; and now her father was dead. That news had been
sent to Mamma months before we left Denver, but as she and the Savant
had written to each other only about once every five or six years, it
hadn't affected her much. However, she thought it would be nice to go
and see Madeleine, and I thought so too.
It was a short journey in the train, and the place where the Sisterhood
live is perfectly lovely, the most beautiful I ever saw, with quantities
of great trees on a flowery lawn sloping down to the river.
I was wondering what my cousin would be like--the only cousin I've got
in the world; and though Mamma said she must be pretty, if she was
anything like her mother, I didn't expect her to be half as pretty as
she really is.
We surprised her as much as she did us, for naturally she expected Mamma
to be like other aunts, which she isn't at all--now; and evidently she
considered me a _curiosity_. But she was very sweet, and when she found
Mamma didn't want to be called Aunt Kathryn, she tried hard always to
"Kitty" her.
We only intended to spend the day, but it turned out that the time of
our visit was rather critical for Maida. She was in the act of having
her twentieth birthday; and it seemed that in her father's will he had
"stipulated" (that's the word the cousin-Mother-Superior used) that his
daughter should be sent to travel in Europe when she was twenty, for a
whole year.
The reason of the stipulation was, that though he didn't care for Maida
as most fathers care for their children, he was a very just man, and was
afraid, after living so long in the Sisterhood his daughter might wish
to join the Order, without knowing enough about the outside world to
make up her mind whether it truly was her vocation for good and all.
That was why she was to go to Europe; for when you're twenty-one you can
become a novice in the Sisterhood, if you like.
The Mother Superior didn't really want Maida to go one bit. It was easy
to see her anxiety to have the "dear child safe in the fold." But Maida
wasn't to inherit a penny of her father's money if she didn't obey his
will, which wouldn't suit the Sisterhood at all; so the Mother had to
hustle round and think how to pack Maida off for the year.
When we happened to arrive on the scene, she thought we were like
Moses's ram caught in the bushes. She told Mamma the whole story--(a
ramrod of a lady with a white face, a white dress, and a long, floating
white veil, she was) asking right out if we'd take Maida with us to
Europe.
Mamma didn't like the idea of being chaperon for such a girl as Maida;
but it was her own sister's daughter, and Mamma is as good-natured as a
Mellin's Food Baby in a magazine, though she gets into little tempers
sometimes. So she said, "Yes," and a fort-night later we all three
sailed on a huge German steamer for Cherbourg. "At least, that's what we
did in the 'dream,'" I reminded myself, when I had got so far in my
thoughts, lying in the monastery bed. And by that time the light was so
clear in the tiny white room, that there was no longer any doubt about
it, I really was awake. I was dear little thirteen-year-old Beechy
Kidder, who wasn't telling fibs about her age, because she _was_
thirteen, and was it anybody's business if she were something more
besides?
VIII
A CHAPTER OF PLAYING DOLLS
I looked at my bracelet-watch, which I had tucked under my pillow last
night. It wasn't quite six o'clock, and we hadn't gone to bed till after
one; but I knew I couldn't sleep any more, and life seemed so
interesting that I thought I might as well get up to see what would come
next.
The water-pitcher didn't hold much more than a quart, but I took the
best bath I could, dressed, and decided to find out what the monastery
grounds were like. We were not to be called till half-past seven, and it
was arranged that we should start at nine, so there was an hour and a
half to spare. I wondered whether I should wake Maida, and get her to go
with me, but somehow I wasn't in the mood for Maida. I was afraid that,
being in a monastery, she would be thinking of her precious Sisterhood
and wanting to hurry back as fast as she could. She does mean to join
when her year is up, I know, which is so silly of her, when the world's
such a nice place; and it nearly gives me nervous prostration to hear
her talk about it. Not that she often does; but it's bad enough to see
it in her eyes.
Maida is a perfect dear, much too good for us, and she always knows the
proper etiquetical thing to do when Mamma and I are wobbly; but she is
such an edelweiss that I'm always being tempted to claw her down from
her high white crags and then regretting it afterwards. Mamma gets cross
with her too, when she's particularly exalted, but we both love her
dearly; and we ought to, for she's always doing something sweet for us.
Only she's a great deal too humble. I suppose it's the thing to be like
that in a Sisterhood, but Mamma and I _aren't_ a Sisterhood, and the
sooner Maida realizes that there's such a place as the world, the better
it will be for her.
So I didn't wake Maida, but went tiptoeing out into the long corridor,
and got lost several times looking for the way out of doors.
At last I was in the garden, though, and it was very quaint and pretty,
with unexpected nooks, old, moss-covered stone seats, and a sundial that
you'd pay hundreds of dollars for in America. Staring up at the house I
thought a window-shutter moved; but I didn't attach any importance to
that until, after I'd crossed several small bridges and discovered a
kind of island with the river rushing by on both sides, I saw Prince
Dalmar-Kalm coming towards me.
I was sitting on a bench on the little green island, where I pretended
to be gazing down at the water and not to see him till he was close by;
for I was in hope that he wouldn't notice me in my grey dress among the
trees. I don't believe the Prince's best friends would call him an early
morning man. He's the kind that oughtn't to be out before lunch, and he
goes especially well with gaslight or electricity. I felt sure he'd be
unbearable before breakfast--either his breakfast or mine.
"It's a pity," I thought, "that I can't run down as rapidly from the age
of thirteen to the age of one as I have from seventeen to thirteen. When
the Prince found me. I should be sitting on the grass playing with
dandelions and saying. 'Da, da?' which would disgust him so much that
he'd stalk away and leave me in peace to grow up in time for breakfast."
But even a child must draw the line somewhere; and presently the Prince
said "Good-morning" (so nicely that I thought he must have had a cracker
or two in his pocket), asking if he might sit by me on the bench.
"I was just going in to wake Mamma," I replied, and I wondered whether,
if I jumped up suddenly, his end of the bench would go down and tilt him
into the river. It would have been fun to see His Highness become His
Lowness, and to tell Sir Ralph Moray afterwards, but just as I was on
the point of making a spring, he remarked that he had seen me come out,
and followed for a particular reason. If I tumbled him into the water, I
might never hear that reason; so seventeen-year-old curiosity overcame
thirteen-year-old love of mischief, and I sat still.
"As you have only just come out, I don't see why you should be just
going in, unless it is to get away from me," said the Prince, "and I
should be sorry to think that, because you are such a dear little girl,
and I am very fond of you."
"So was Papa," said I, with my best twelve-and-a-half-year-old
expression.
"But I am not quite ancient enough to be your Papa," replied the Prince,
"so you need not name us together like that."
"_Aren't_ you?" I asked, with big eyes.
"Well, that depends on how old you are, my dear."
"I'm too old for you to call your dear, unless you _are_ old enough to
be my Papa," was the sage retort of Baby Beechy.
"I'm over thirty," said the Prince.
"Yes, I know," said I. "I found the Almanach de Gotha on the table of
our hotel at Cap Martin, and you were in it."
"Naturally," said the Prince, but he got rather red, as people always do
when they find out that you know just how far over thirty they've really
gone. "But I'm not married," he went on, "therefore you cannot think of
me as of your papa."
"I don't think of you much as anything," said I. "I'm too busy."
"Too busy! Doing what?"
"Playing dolls," I explained.
"I wish you were a little older," said the Prince, with a good imitation
of a sigh. "Ah, _why_ haven't you a few years more?"
"You might ask Mamma," I replied. "But then, if I had, _she_ would have
more too wouldn't she?"
"That would be a pity. She is charming as she is. She must have married
when almost a child."
"Did you come out here at this time of the morning to ask me about
Mamma's marriage?" I threw at him. "Because, if _that_ was your reason,
I'd rather go in to my dolls."
"No, no," protested the Prince, in a hurry. "I came to talk about
yourself."
I began to feel an attack of giggles coming on, but I stopped them by
holding my breath, as you do for hiccoughs, and thinking about Job,
which, if you can do it soon and solemnly enough, is quite a good
preventive. I knew now exactly why Prince Dalmar-Kalm had dashed on his
clothes at sight of me and come into the garden on an empty stomach. He
had thought, if he could get me all alone for half an hour (which he'd
often tried to do and never succeeded) he could find out a lot of things
that he would like to know. Perhaps he felt it was impossible for
anybody to be as young as I seem, so that was what he wanted to find out
about first. If I _wasn't_, he would flirt; if I _was_, he would merely
pump.
There wasn't much time to decide on a "course of action," as Mamma's
lawyer in Denver says; but I put on my thinking-cap and tied it tight