Little Miss By-The-Day Part 11

"He's given me an idea," he announced suddenly. "Or perhaps it was Tom's gossip about him. How'd you like to do an ingenue part like that missing lady affair--start with your head over a garden wall--call it 'The Heart of a Boy,' say--fill it up with this stuff Hamilt calls youth--"

Tommie absorbed his last pastry.

"I've just remembered the girl's name," he announced, wiping a crumb from his moist lips. "It was Felicia something or other--sort of sad, wasn't it?"

"Maybe it would have been sadder if she'd married him," suggested Edwina ironically. "He is a grouch, you can't get around that."

And the grouch, striding briskly up the avenue, was trying to be fair.

"Poor old Tommie!" he thought ruefully, "I don't know why I should go on hating him because he will blab--it's the nature o' the beast--that stupid little much-divorced animal that married him--" he glared at two innocent young shoppers who were pa.s.sing, "Gad, women are such sophisticated cows nowadays--" Spring always made him wretched, spring always made him fretful, spring always sent him off for the woods somewhere, any woods so long as it was woods. He pondered over whether he could get away Friday or would have to wait till Sat.u.r.day morning, and eventually decided on Sat.u.r.day, consulting a memorandum book scowlingly as he did so, jotting down appointments. He noted that he would have to be in his office at five o'clock on Friday. Somebody or other was going to telephone him about something. Which made him reflect irritably that of all the mechanical devices of a mechanical age the thing he hated most of all was a telephone! He could scarcely endure the stupid way everybody shrieked "h.e.l.lo!" through it. He wished morosely that he could take a week-end trip without any luggage whatever because he always had a row about his luggage. He wished there was some system whereby one needn't always lose half one's luggage.

Felicia could have told him! Infrequent traveler that she was she had been properly educated on that point. However much she may have yawned, at the tender age of ten, over a certain dissertation on the etiquette of travel, given one summer afternoon by Mademoiselle D'Ormy, Felicia aged twenty-seven, embarked upon her first journey alone, found herself musing with mighty comfort upon the charming definiteness of those never-to-be-forgotten axioms. For Mademoiselle had made the small Felicia recite them over and over until she was letter perfect.

"On a journey the traveler should enumerate all the traveling equipment in fives to avoid the confusion caused by losing one's belongings. Count upon the fingers what one has possessed upon starting."

All unconscious of the amused glances of her fellow pa.s.sengers, Felicia Day, in her absurd bonnet and antiquated traveling coat sat primly in the Pullman section that the doctor's thoughtfulness had provided for her and counted her "five" just before her train reached New York. She smiled as she counted, a whimsical smile--

Item one. A letter! A beautiful letter, reposing next her heart under the stiff bodice of a frock that had once belonged to Josepha, mother- in-law of Major Trenton.

Item two. One fluffy, sleepy Blenheim spaniel hidden in the capacious sleeve of a coat that had been Octavia's.

Item three. A long and narrow knitted reticule, once carried by Louisa, wife of Major Trenton, now containing bills and coins placed there by Margot, said reticule held firmly, as Margot had directed, with the center twisted firmly around Felicia's left wrist.

Item four. One russet leather traveling bag once used by Major Trenton, now containing modest rolls of ancient lingerie, Octavia's ma.s.sive silver brushes and combs, a faded India dressing-gown belonging to whom even Margot couldn't remember, on top of which was tucked a flat wicker basket containing small cakes and sandwiches wrapped neatly in a napkin and weighted over all these contents, where Felicia herself had placed it when Margot wasn't looking--THE THEORY AND PRACTISE OF GARDENING!

"Perhaps the wistaria will have to be pruned--perhaps the ivy around the fountain will need tr.i.m.m.i.n.g--maybe the narcissi will need thinning out when they're through blossoming--I'm stupid about narcissi. I've been living so long where there weren't any--" Her thoughts had raced longingly toward the back yard of her childhood while Margot had been packing the bag.

Item five. "Myself," decided Felicia nodding, "I must be careful not to lose myself."

Which, droll as it seemed when she enumerated, proved to be the most difficult item to remember.

"_Likewise on a journey especially of a business nature, one should keep clearly in mind the exact order of destination, choosing the most urgent first._"

Destination first. "Temple Bar" where one may find the Portia Person who long ago promised to help should one ever be "in Trouble."

Destination second. The address at the bottom of a grimy handbill that announced "To be sold at auction for unpaid taxes--By the order of J.

K. Harlow, Justice of the--"

Destination _really_! Eighteen Columbia Heights!

"First," Felicia at least began her thinking clearly, "I shall go to see the Judge and I shall say 'Don't sell Grandy's house because Certain Legal Matters hasn't attended to things. Just wait. I know another lawyer, he's in Temple Bar. He will attend to everything.' Oh no! First I'll go find the Portia Person and while he is attending to everything I will send a letter to Dudley Hamilt's house--then I will go to Grandy's house and wait for Dudley Hamilt to come--oh! oh!

Bab.i.+.c.he--I can't arrange things clearly in mind, I can't no matter how I try! Only I must--"

So over and over to the roar of the train she tried to drill herself.

"First the Portia Person--then the Judge--"

It was nine o'clock in the morning when, tired and bewildered, she emerged from the subway at Borough Hall, Brooklyn. The little hand, that "had never spread itself over a doork.n.o.b or a fire-iron or any clumsy thing" struggled valiantly with the russet bag; the new Bab.i.+.c.he, cramped and shaken from her day and night of travel, poked her snubby nose from under the traveling coat and sniffed and squeakingly yawned. Louisa's bonnet had worked itself askew, the sharp wind from the river was flapping the heavy clothing about her slender ankles and displaying the outlandish old "Congress gaiter" shoes. A distressed and ridiculous figure, she stood and shuddered at the roar of the elevated above her and the jangle of the surface cars that clattered past her and trembled at the disconcerting honk of the motors that barely escaped crus.h.i.+ng her.

Officer Brennan, pompously regulating the congested traffic watched the grotesque person on the curbstone and chuckled.

"For the love of hivin," he thought, "Thim movie actors will dress like annything for the money--" and glanced about automatically to see the camera man. But something in the terror of the little woman's glance flashed over the crowded crossing to his warm Irish heart, "Hullo, she's no acterine!" He ploughed through the river of travel and caught at her arm and felt her slight weight sag against him.

"Annybody as turned her loose--" he continued his soliloquy after he'd jollied a newsboy into escorting her across to the Temple Bar Building, "Ought to be sent up--" He vented his disgust at the "annybody" on a daring chauffeur and watched until the newsboy came panting back to his stand to nod a triumphant grinning affirmative "'Nd her head up in the air like a queen--" he held his own head regally to signal the cross-town traffic, "Queer lot!" and forgot her.

It was noon when she came back to him, looking older and queerer and whiter faced than ever. Temple Bar is a large office building and Felicia Day had tramped courageously from floor to floor, from office to office, persistently seeking the Portia Person. She had been laughed at, had been almost insulted, had been treated with deference and treated with indifference; she had talked with scores and scores of lawyers, looking searchingly into their faces, asking her question firmly and sweetly. She had asked it of busy lawyers, lazy lawyers, suave lawyers, thin lawyers, fat lawyers, rude lawyers, young lawyers, old lawyers; she had talked to dozens of clerks and stenographers, appealed to elevator men, janitors, scrub women, any one who would listen--she wanted to find the Portia Person, he had curly hair and he was quite tall and he had had a client whose name was Octavia, who was pretty and ill and who had given him some papers sixteen years ago. He had talked with Mademoiselle D'Ormy, in a house in Montrose Place. Of this business that she had for him the little woman was extraordinarily canny, it was no one's affair save hers and the Portia Person's.

The patient girl at the news stand in the main hallway looked up and down a list of tenants, checking them off with an over-manicured finger as she tried to suggest. She had taken charge of Felicia's bag, had offered to keep Bab.i.+.c.he. Her good humor shone in a dreary morning.

Felicia began to have faith in her.

"If I was you," said the girl, "I'd go get myself a bite to eat. It's noon, everybody's going out--don't you see?"

Felicia saw, she saw also that the patient newsstand girl was tired.

"Do you go to get yourself 'a bite'?" she asked curiously.

"Not till two o'clock," sighed the girl.

"I wish," decided Felicia whimsically, "that Margot had cooked _de_-licious foods for us--broiled chicken and baked potatoes and a caramel custard and that we could go and sit by the Bowling Green and have Bele bring our lunch out on the little folding table--for you have been most kind to me--"

The girl stared after her in amazement.

"Well, I'll be darned!" she announced frankly to the elevator starter, "that woman is the limit! She's certainly got me guessing! One minute she seems as intelligent as anybody--only she can't remember the name of the man she's looking for--but gee, I forget names myself--and the next minute she's asking me to lunch on Bowling Green, as pleasant as you please! Can you beat it? And I can't for the life of me make out whether she's young or old--her voice's dandy and young. Honest, I like to hear her talk, she talks so comical--but don't she look like the last rose of summer, now don't she?"

The elevator starter agreed that she did and whistled "She May Have Seen Better Days" till the news-stand girl giggled and told him he was "Too comical" but they both of them commented about her when she did not return.

"She may be a nut," admitted the girl, "But she's kinda got me going.

Gee I'd like to find the lawyer for her just to find out was she Dorothy Arnold come back--or somebody like that."

It was Officer Brennan who had dissuaded her from her attempt to find the Portia Person. He had spied her, standing undecided outside the office building and hailed her as he was about to go off his beat.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

His sureness of manner and his uniform impressed her.

"I couldn't find the man I wanted," she confided, "so I think I'll just have to see the Judge Person, myself, wouldn't you?"

He cogitated. Did she know what judge she wanted to see?

She unfolded the grimy hand bill, the "To be sold for unpaid taxes"

that Zeb had brought to her. He read it slowly till he came to the "Order of Justice Harlow" at the bottom.

"That's an easy one," he cheered her, "I'll take you over there right now and put you next to a fellow who works there. He'll slip you through to his Honor himself and you can tell him your troubles."

But in spite of being "slipped through" there was a deal of waiting, sometimes in anterooms, sometimes in corridors, a deal of answering the questions of not overly intelligent clerks, and late afternoon found her sitting primly cuddling her restless doggie, waiting for some one to bring the tax records. She was a little tireder, a little hungrier, a little less sure of herself than when the friendly news girl had advised her to "get a bite." She was keeping her courage high by thinking over and over to herself,

"After I see the Judge then I'll go to Dudley Hamilt."

It had not occurred to her that this busy place was a court room. It had no stately panelled walls like those that had been painted in the background of the portrait of Grandy's father. Nor did she understand when she was at last ushered into the Justice's presence that he was the man she had been waiting to see.