Why Joan? Part 3

Whereupon the girl dropped all her belongings, and cast herself upon him speechless, to be lifted well off the ground and hugged and kissed very thoroughly.

"Fine! She's got a father, anyway, and a bully old bird at that,"

thought the young man, who had never owned either father or mother or much of anything else that he could remember. It was his further privilege to hurry after the pair with a suit-case, some magazines, and a box of candy which both had characteristically forgotten.

He was thanked by Major Darcy with an affable smile, and by his daughter with a curt, impersonal nod of dismissal after Sister Mary Joseph's best manner; which also pleased him, for he was by no means a thin-skinned young man, and preferred his gentlewomen haughty. He followed the pair far enough to observe the vehicle to which the father was obviously conducting her.

"Humph!" he said to himself; "rich people!" and turned away, rather disappointed. (Why this should be, the writer cannot say, being merely a chronicler of facts.)

Joan's flow of excited babble paused as she herself saw this vehicle.

"Goodness! Are we going home in a taxicab? What grandeur!" she murmured, mentally figuring out the tariff. Then the monogram on the door enlightened her.

"Oh, it's Mrs. Calloway's," she said, relieved, a little ashamed to have quite forgotten the existence of their well-meaning neighbor. "How good of her to send it for me!" she added with a giggle, recalling her recent game of Pretend. "All you need to do to complete the picture, Daddy, is to say, 'Home, James!'"

Major Darcy obligingly murmured, "Home, James!" The chauffeur touched his cap, and enclosed them in the perfumed elegance of the limousine.

Joan gave a crow of laughter, and rubbed her cheek affectionately against her father's sleeve. This was like old times indeed, happy old times, when in his lighter moments the Major had frequently entered into the spirit of her play. The contact of his sleeve was unusually soft, and she suddenly held him at arm's length to see him better.

"Why, Major Darcy! If you haven't gone and bought yourself a new suit in honor of the occasion. A beauty, too!"

He surveyed what he could of himself complacently. "The fellow has given me rather a good fit, I think."

Joan gasped. "'The fellow!' Then it's not a ready-made--you've actually been to a tailor for it? Oh, Daddy darling!" she cried excitedly, "have you been making money?"

The Major's eyebrows lifted. "I believe," he remarked, "that I have usually made money, have I not? Sufficient, at least, to keep my family comfortable."

Joan was reminded with a jerk of Darcy traditions. "Of course!" She flushed. "I didn't mean--"

And suddenly she realized that the look she had been so long dreading to see in his eyes, that expression of anxiety which was almost fear, had quite disappeared. There was an air about him of security, of nonchalance, as one who would say, "Bring on your Indians! Who's afraid?" (Not that the Major would have condescended to know the meaning of the family expression, "Indians.")

Joan gave his hand a quick little squeeze that was oddly maternal. "I'm so glad, Dad," she said quietly; and went on to speak of other things.

They turned into the street where home was. Silence fell upon her. The prospect of facing her mother's absence was more difficult than she had thought it would be. At least there was Ellen to comfort her; gruff, matter-of-fact old Ellen, always at her crossest when most deeply moved.

She pinned her thoughts to Ellen.

The Major's recent prosperity seemed not to have affected his dwelling-place as yet. As they drew near, Joan saw even in the dusk that the little lawn in front needed attention; nor was there so much as a light in the window to greet her--Ellen was always so careful about the gasbill. Then, as the limousine did not stop, she realized the For Rent sign on the door.

"Why, Dad, we've moved!" she cried with an odd pang at her heart. "Oh, but where?"

"Wait and see. 'Lay-lows for meddlers,'" he smiled, pleased with his little stage-effect.

The limousine bowled smoothly around the corner into the fas.h.i.+onable avenue beyond; and Joan thought, with a habit of anxiety beyond her years, that the new money would not last long if they were to live in such a neighborhood as this. But they stopped at a door she remembered, an imposing door with a porte-cochere, where, still as in her game of Pretend, a lady in a tea-gown stood waiting for them. Not, however, her mother.

"Here you are at last, girlie!" cried the cheery voice of Mrs. Calloway; and she was received into a voluminous pink chiffon embrace, highly scented with the latest thing in perfumes.

Joan fought her way quite rudely out of this embrace, feeling suffocated. Her knees had begun to tremble.

"Are--are we visiting you!" she quavered, piteously putting off the inevitable.

The lady laughed, a laugh as plump and soft and cus.h.i.+ony as the rest of her. "There, now, d.i.c.kie; I don't believe you've had the nerve to tell her yet!"

She rustled over and stood beside the Major, slightly in front of him, so that she could lean back archly against his shoulder; a position which seemed to bring an arm automatically into position about her waist.

"Dollykins," said Richard Darcy, clearing his throat and not quite meeting the girl's wide gaze, "this is my--my graduation gift to you.

Your new mamma!"

CHAPTER V

Joan was alone at last in such a bed as she had never occupied in her life, even in her most luxurious games of Pretend. To her inexperience the sheets felt as if made of softest silk--at its crest the Darcy establishment had never run to fine linen--and they were edged with lace which Joan longed frugally to transfer to a best petticoat; only that there seemed no need for her to trouble further about best petticoats, nor about anything else. Under the eager guidance of her "new mamma,"

drawer after drawer in the room she occupied had been opened to disclose piles of exquisite underthings, of the sort Joan had first encountered upon the Calloway clothes lines, except that these were white instead of pink.

"Pink's _my_ color," explained the former Mrs. Calloway. "Besides, white lawngerie seems sort of better for a girl that's never been married, don't you think? Even if it isn't so becoming. 'Tain't as if there was anybody to see her in it," she added, with a conscious blush.

Joan found no suitable comment to make upon this treasure-trove. Her lips would not utter anything beyond a perfunctory "Thank you," even when further investigation discovered a closet hung with dresses of every sort, with peignoirs, with motor-coats and dainty wraps, with everything in the way of finery which every girl alive hopes at some time to possess, but which the daughter of Richard Darcy had learned to look upon from afar with an air of indifference.

"Are these all for me?" she asked dully.

"Of course they are! Just a few little models I had sent up on approval." (The ex-Mrs. Calloway invariably referred to her costumes in affectionate diminutives, as "little gowns," "little negligees," "little hats," etc., though the adjective could rarely be said to fit them.) "If these don't suit we'll get others--though anything ought to look good on your form, dearie." She added, clasping her hands, "It certainly is fun shoppin' for a daughter of your own!"--an outburst which might have struck some responsive chord in a heart less young than Joan's, less hard and tight and bitter with the tears that would not come.

Major Darcy had observed her apathy under this rain of largesse with some disapproval. It was not the first time he had secretly wished that his daughter might have inherited a trifle more of the Darcy manner. At length, as the girl stood looking about her new room silently, still with the strange lack of comment that seemed like indifference, he ventured a remonstrance.

"I don't think you quite realize how much time and thought and trouble your--er, your mother and I have expended on these little surprises for your home-coming, Dollykins. Or you would be more appreciative."

"_My mother!_" repeated Joan to herself with a sick gasp.

It was the bride who came to her rescue. "She's tired out, Major, that's all. And no wonder! She hardly ate a bite of dinner. You go right to bed and sleep, girlie," she advised comfortably. "In the morning you'll be better able to enjoy all your pretties."

So Joan was at last alone, wondering whether she would ever be able to enjoy anything again; alone in a strange room crowded with large blond bird's-eye maple furniture which reminded her oddly of her step-mother; with pale blue walls, a blue rug, blue silk covers on chairs and bed, blue stationery spread out on the desk, all to match. There was nothing, not a chair, nor book nor picture, to remind its forlorn inhabitant of home; until suddenly, lost amid the glitter of the silver on the dressing-table, she discovered a faded photograph of her mother which her father had for many years carried in his pocket. This she jerked out of the opulent silver frame that disguised it, and held hungrily to her cheek, going to bed with it finally under her pillow. It did not occur to her to wonder who had put it there. (But it was not Richard Darcy.)

Yet still the tears would not come. She lay staring into the dark with hot, dry, aching eyes, repeating agonizingly to herself the questions she had not found courage to ask her father--foolish, trivial questions that seemed almost irrelevant in the face of this overwhelming calamity.... What had he done with the furniture, their furniture, the dear, shabby tables and chairs and hangings which were part of the home Mary Darcy had given her life in making?... And where was Ellen? What had he done with Ellen? Was there to be nothing left?

Once she whispered aloud, "How _could_ he?"--but resolutely turned her mind away from that. It did not bear thinking of. The luxury of the room seemed to crowd upon her, choking her.... The price of her father's shame!...

It seemed to her near morning when her door opened, softly. She began to s.h.i.+ver, thinking it must be her father come for the intimate explanatory talk which was inevitable between them. What could she say to him? How could she ever find anything to say to her father again?

But it was not Richard Darcy who tiptoed in. The lamp beside her bed clicked on, revealing a good deal of the former Mrs. Calloway in a marvellous nightgown, her golden head as carefully coiffed as for a ball.

"Major's off and going strong," she announced, "so I slipped away to see how you were gettin' on, dearie. I Had a kind of feelin' you wouldn't be asleep yet. I'm like that myself in a strange bed.... Look here," her voice changed as she saw the white and miserable face among the pillows--"you aren't holding it against your papa and me, girlie, because we sprung this on you as a surprise? I _told_ Major we ought to wait till you came home! But it was you who introduced us, you know; and I knew it would be all right as soon as we got to know each other better. And Major wouldn't hear to waiting, was bound and determined to have me just as soon as he could get me. Men,"--she laughed her plump, merry laugh--"are such babies when it comes to havin' what they want right away, ain't they?"

"Are they?" said Joan dully.

"You take it from me they are! A man that doesn't want you quick don't want you at all. And I must say your father needed marryin' more than any one I _ever_ saw! Spots all over his clothes, and that s.h.i.+ny in the back you could see your face in him. Your mother must have had a time keepin' that man neat! Besides, if we'd waited till you came, what would we have done with you on the honeymoon? Not," she added coyly, "that it's over yet, by any means! When he was on his death-bed Calloway said to me, says he, 'Effie May, our honeymoon never has been over, has it?'

Some women are that way, just naturally affectionate and fond of makin'

men feel at home. And both of us were real lonesome.... You don't blame me for marrying Major, do you?" she finished rather wistfully.

Joan said after a long pause, "No, I don't think I blame you, Mrs.