The Three Black Pennys Part 11

Jasper Penny had had no idea that it would be so difficult to procure clothes for a girl of seven. At first he was told that the necessary garments could not be furnished, when discussion revealed the fact that a nearly complete, diminutive wardrobe, especially ordered from Paris and neglected by the customer, was to be had. In a surprisingly short while a sentimental saleswoman had apparelled Eunice in black velvet with rows of small bows and gold buckles and a lace collar, cambric pantaloon ruffles swinging about her ankles, a quilted pink satin bonnet tied, like those of her elders', with a bow under her right cheek, and a m.u.f.f and tippet of ermine. Other articles--a frock of rose gros de chine, with a flounced skirt, a drab velvet bonnet turned in green smocked silk, and sheer underthings--he ordered delivered at Sanderson's Hotel.

The effect of what laudanum Eunice had taken faded, and her lethargy was replaced by an equally still, incredulous amazement. She followed Jasper Penny about with the mechanical rigidity of a minute sleepwalker. They went into a jewelry store beyond, with a square low bow window and white tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, where he purchased a ring with a ruby, and small gold bracelets with locks and chains. His restless desire was to clothe Eunice in money, to overwhelm her with gifts; yet, although an evident delight struggled through her stupefaction, he failed to get from the expenditure the release he sought. A leaden sense of blood guiltiness persisted in him. At Parkinson's, the confectioner opposite the State House, he bought her syllabubs, a frozen rose cordial and black cake. On leaving, he paused at the marble steps with a lantern on either side and awning drawn out over the pavement, considering the next move. It should be toys--a German doll, slate and coloured crayons and jumping-figures.

Then he took her back to his rooms at the Hotel.

Sitting in a stiff crimson chair opposite him, the doll clasped in straining fingers, and a flush of excitement on her sharp features, she presented an enormous difficulty. What, justly, was he to do with her?

How could he provide for a reasonable happiness, a healthy, normal existence? He decided coldly that he would prevent Essie Scofield's influence from ever touching the child again. Essie, he knew, was utterly without any warmth of motherhood. She had solely and callously used their daughter to extort money from him. But, he admitted to himself, neither had he any feeling of parentage for the small, lonely figure before him; nothing but a burning self-accusation, a lacerated pride. His act proceeded entirely from his head in place of his heart.

For that very reason, Jasper Penny thought, he could give his daughter a greater measure of security. He would see Stephen Jannan to-morrow and with the lawyer's a.s.sistance get complete control of Eunice's future. He must alter his will.

None of this, however, a.s.sisted in solving the actual immediate necessity. There was, certainly, Myrtle Forge; his mother, however she might silently suffer, protest, would ultimately accede in his wishes.

But it was a dreary place for a child, with only the companions.h.i.+p of old women. He was, for the greater part, away in the interest of his widely scattered activities, forges, furnaces, nail factories and rolling mills.

He felt in antic.i.p.ation the censure of the Penny connections that would rise like a wall and shut Eunice from the companions.h.i.+p of the other children, of the family, embittering her at what he had somewhere heard described as the formative period of growth. His home, he decided, for the present at least, was an undesirable place for his daughter.

It was, he discovered, past two, and he remorsefully summoned a servant.

He gazed with bewilderment at the list of dinner dishes tended him; bear's meat, he felt, canvas back duck or terrapin, was not a diet proper to seven; but he solved the perplexity by ordering snipe, rolled and sugared cakes filled with whipped cream and preserved strawberries, and a deep apple pandowdy. After this, and a block of nougat, Eunice discovered herself to be sleepy. As she lay with tossed arms and pale streaming hair under the feather coverlet of a great hotel bed he saw with a sharp uneasiness that, in a subtle but unmistakable accent, she resembled her mother, Essie Scofield.

XIII

His thoughts darkened with the falling day; he supposed them to be solely addressed to the problem of Eunice; but, in reality, they constantly evaded his will, following countless trivialities, and returned to his own, peculiar need. He made some small changes of dress for the evening, replacing brown with glazed black boots, and struggled, with one hand, through the ordeal of tying a formal neckcloth. He had purposely left behind his negro servant as a possible source of unguarded chatter. When Jasper Penny had finished he went in to Eunice and found her awake. The new clothes lay in their open boxes; and, lighting candles, he wondered if he had better have some one in to a.s.sist her. "Can you fix yourself up in these?" he asked, indicating the purchases.

"Oh, yes," she a.s.sured him gravely; "that is except the very backest b.u.t.tons." She stood by the folded piles of s.h.i.+rred muslin, the elaborate velvets and silks and ribbons, obviously at a loss before such an unparalleled choice; and he was once more disturbed by the attenuation of her small body. But that could be soon remedied; she had suffered other, far greater, irremedial, oppressions; her very birth had confronted her, in the puritanical self-righteousness of his world, with an almost insuperable barrier to happiness. Still back of that, even before the birth of himself and Essie Scofield, back, back in the unguessed past, Eunice had been shaped, condemned. Her fate had only culminated in his own unbalanced pa.s.sion, in a desire that had blinded him like a flash of ignited powder, leaving him with a sense of utter void, of inexplicable need. "For what?" he demanded unconsciously and bitterly aloud.

Eunice, startled, dropped the garment in her hands. She gazed at him with a shrinking dread. "Come," he told her gently, "that will be very pretty; and, don't you think, the velvet bonnet with green?" After supper he questioned her. "What time do you usually go to bed?" She answered promptly, "When it got too cold to stay up, at Mr. Needles', but I wouldn't know here."

"We might go to the Circus," he suggested, half doubtful of the propriety of such a course. However, they went. She clung tightly to his sleeve before the illuminated, high-pillared facade of Welches' Circus, where Jasper took seats in a box. Eunice was breathless before the gleaming white and gold of the interior, the fabulous, glittering chandelier, the crimson draperies and great curtain with its equestrienne on a curvetting steed. The orchestra, with a blare of trombones, announced the raising of the curtain and appearance of Mr.

John Mays, the celebrated clown. He was followed by Chinese sports, the Vision of Cupid and Zephyr, and the songs, the programme stated, of Lowrie and Williams. These gentlemen, in superb yellow satin, emphasized harmoniously the fact that

"And joy is but a flower, The heart with sorrow meeting Will wither 'neath its power."

Jasper Penny wondered abstractedly what was to be done with the tense, excitable child at his side? A voice from the wings announced: "Mouse and Harebell, the Lilliputian ponies, with Infant Jockies, the smallest schooled racers in existence." And the word "schooled" recalled to him the diffident woman he had met at Stephen Jannan's, the night before.

Miss ... Brundon. A place for the education of younger girls. He could send Eunice there, for the present at any rate; and decide later upon her ultimate situation. Miss Brundon had a sensitive, yes, distinctly, a fine face. Her school, he remembered, was at Raspberry Alley, far out Spruce Street, close to Tenth. He drew a deep breath of relief at this bridging of the immediate complications the child presented.

The next morning, again in the Reaper coach, they rolled west over Chestnut Street, past a theatre with elevated statues of Comedy and Tragedy, the Arcade with its outside stairs mounting across the front, stone mansions set back in gardens with gravelled paths, and the Moorish bulk of Masonic Hall half hid by stores. Beyond the Circus they proceeded on foot to a four square brick dwelling with weeping willows and an arched wood sign above the entrance painted with the designation, "Miss Brundon's Select Academy."

Jasper Penny found Miss Brundon in a small, bare, immaculate office. She was sitting at a table; and, as he entered, with Eunice dragging desperately at his hand, she half rose, with a quick, faint blush.

"Mr. Penny," she exclaimed, in a low, charming surprise. "I didn't expect, so soon, to have the pleasure ... here, at my school." He firmly moved Eunice from her position at his back. "An unexpected pleasure for me," he replied. "I came to consult with you about this little girl--the daughter of a friend of mine. A friend, I may add, in difficult circ.u.mstances, and for whom I am prepared to do a great deal. I had hoped--Stephen Jannan told me about your exceptional establishment--that you could take her. She needs just the supervision that I am certain you offer."

"Of course," she replied immediately, "I'd be glad to have any one recommended by you. I do think my school is unusual. You see, there is almost no provision for the supervision of such young ladies. And I have been very fortunate in my girls; I try not to be sn.o.bbish, Mr. Penny; but, indeed, if a place like this is to be useful, some care is required. Probably you would like an a.s.surance of their studies and deportment."

"No," he stopped her hastily; "it is quite enough to have seen you." A deeper, painful colour suffused her cheeks. He had, he thought, been inexcusably clumsy. He had unconsciously given voice to the conviction that Miss Brundon, like her establishment, was exceptional. She was, ordinarily, too pale for beauty; her countenance, with high, cheek bones, was irregular; yet her eyes, tranquil blue, held a steady quality almost the radiance of an inward light. Her diffidence, it was clear, co-existed with a firm, inviolable spirit. He said, later:

"You will discover that there are many things Eunice requires, and I would be obliged if you would procure them without stint, and send the accounts to my Philadelphia office. The child has been in circ.u.mstances of considerable poverty; but I wish to give her whatever advantages money can bring. Yes--Eunice Scofield. And--" he hesitated, "in view of this...."

"I understand, oh, completely," Susan Brundon interrupted him warmly.

"You don't wish your charity exposed; and not only on your own account, but from consideration for the susceptibilities of the parents, parent--a mother, I gather."

It had been, he thought, leaving, ridiculously simple. His meeting with Miss Brundon was a fortunate chance. A fine, delicate, unworldly woman; a fineness different from Phebe's, submerged in the pursuit of her own salvation. The former, he realized, was close to forty. If she had been sympathetic with a strange child such as Eunice how admirably she would attend any of her own. Unmarried. The blindness of men, their fatuous choice, suddenly surprised him.

He determined to proceed directly to Stephen Jannan, and put into motion at once the solving of his daughter's future. Never, he repeated, should Eunice fall again into the lax hands of Essie Scofield. Stephen would advise him shrewdly, taking advantage of the law, or skilfully overcoming its obstacles. He had unbounded faith in the power of money where Essie was concerned; at the same time he had no intention of laying himself open to endless extortion, threats, almost inevitable, ultimate scandal. What a bog he had strayed into, a quagmire reaching about him in every direction. He must discover firmer ground ahead, release from the act of that other man, his youth. The memory of the serene purity of Miss Brundon's office recurred to him like a breath from the open s.p.a.ces where he had first known the deep pleasure of an utter freedom of spirit.

Jasper Penny, revolving the complications of his position, made his way directly over the uneven sidewalk of Spruce Street to Fourth; there, pa.s.sing the high, narrow residences of Society Hill, he proceeded to Stephen's office, beyond Chestnut. It was in a square brick edifice of an earlier period, with a broad marble step and door and wide windows coped in scoured white stone. The lawyer's private chamber was bare, with snowy panelling and mahogany, the high sombre shelves of a calf-bound law library, a ponderous cabriolet table, st.u.r.dy, rush-seated Dutch chairs, and a Franklin stove with slender bra.s.s capitols and s.h.i.+ning hod.

"A chair, Jasper," Stephen Jannan directed. "You ought to know them, they came out of Myrtle Forge--some of old Gilbert's. Your mother gave them to me when she did over the house in this new French fancy." Jasper Penny was momentarily at a loss for an adequate opening of the subject that had brought him there. Finally he plunged directly into his purpose. "You must know, Stephen," he said, "that I am decidedly obligated to a Mrs. Scofield." Jannan nodded shortly. "The thing dragged on for a number of years, but is quite dead now; in fact, it has been for a considerable number of months. That, in itself, doesn't bother me; it is comparatively simple; but there is a child, a girl, Stephen."

"I didn't know that," the other acknowledged. "It is an ugly difficulty.

Do you wish to legitimatize your--the child? There is marriage of course."

"I have no intention of marrying Essie Scofield," Jasper Penny said coldly. "And I am almost certain she wouldn't consent if I had. I am quite willing to a.s.sume a proper responsibility; but there is a limit to my conception of that. There was never any serious question of marriage; there is none now. I simply wish to get complete control of Eunice; by adoption, perhaps; she is seven years old."

"There are no laws of adoption, as such, in Pennsylvania," Jannan told him. "The only State with that provision is Louisiana; there, by an act of Legislature, the thing can be legalized. I could arrange it through correspondence, a certain residence within the State. It would be c.u.mbersome and expensive, but possible." He paused, frowning. "Devilish awkward," he muttered; "make a stench in a family such as ours.

However," he added, "a contract practically to the same effect can be drawn. This, with her consent, would be entirely binding on Mrs.

Scofield. If the child can write it would be well to have her signature on the deed. Bring them here; she should have counsel."

"After that, I suppose, the name could be arranged."

"Exactly. The child, of course, would have no legal status as your heir.

Anything she got would have to be willed direct." The other nodded. It was all far more simple than he had hoped. He almost saw a definite lightening of the future. "Is the girl with her mother now?" Jannan queried.

"I took her away yesterday," Jasper Penny replied negligently. "We went to the Circus, and at present she is at Miss Brandon's Academy." He was surprised by the sudden concern on his cousin's handsome, florid countenance. "By heaven, Jasper," the lawyer exclaimed, "am I to understand that you took a--well, an illegitimate child, to Miss Brundon, left her in the School? It's--it's incredible."

"Why not?"

"If such a thing were known it would ruin Susan Brundon over night.

Haven't you a conception of how this is regarded? She would be stripped of pupils as if the place reeked of malignant fever. A most beastly egotistical and selfish act."

"Never thought of that," Jasper Penny admitted. He saw again the fine, sensitive face of Miss Brundon, presiding over the establishment that was like an emanation of her diffident and courageous spirit; the last person alive he would harm. And people were exactly as Stephen had said, particularly women. They would destroy Susan Brundon ruthlessly, without a moment's hesitation. He thought of her as suffering incalculably, betrayed by his implied lie; he saw her eyes stricken with pain, her hands twisting together.... He rose sharply.

"A blind, infernal fool!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, grasping his hat. "I'm glad I saw you when I did. Put it right at once. Obliged, Stephen; come to you later about changing my will and the rest."

He was in such haste to remove the danger of Eunice from Susan Brundon that not until he again stood at the door of the Academy did he realize what a difficult explanation lay before him. Unconsciously he had reached a point where he would do his utmost to avoid hurting her.

Already she occupied an unusual elevation in his thoughts, an unworldly plane bathed in a white radiance.

She was not in the office, but soon appeared, with a questioning gaze; and, he felt, an appealing lessening of her reserve. He hesitated, casting vainly about for an acceptable expression of his errand. Another lie, he thought, acutely distressed, must be necessary. "I am extremely sorry, Miss Brandon," he told her, "but unexpected developments in the last hour make it necessary for me to remove Eunice from your school."

A slow flush invaded her countenance lifted to meet his troubled gaze.

"Mr. Penny!" she exclaimed, in a faint dismay. "Oh, I hope it is because of nothing--nothing derogatory you have heard. Please tell me directly--"

"Absolutely no," he replied, his voice carrying a vibrating rea.s.surance.

"You are entirely without the need of recommendation, far beyond any unfavourable report. I am profoundly disturbed by causing you inconvenience, and I only hope to offer you sufficient apology; but I shall have to take Eunice away with me, at once."

"Perhaps her mother can't bear separation."

"It is not that," he said grimly, a tangible hurt sharpening within; "but something that cannot be gone into, with you." She turned away immediately. "I will send for her," she replied. They stood facing but mutually avoiding each other's gaze while Eunice was being fetched.