скачать книгу бесплатно
"Your motives would be uncharitably suspected, Cleland. You can give her enough. Besides, you don't want to stir up anything – rattle any skeletons – for this little girl's sake."
"No, of course not. You're quite right, Brinton. No money could compensate her. And, as you say, I am able to provide for her amply."
"Besides," said Brinton, "there's the paternal aunt, Miss Rosalinda Quest. She's as rich as mud. It may be that she'll do something for the child."
"I don't want her to," exclaimed Cleland angrily. "If she'll make no objection to my taking the girl, she can keep her money and leave it to the niggers of Senegambia when she dies, for all I care! Fix it for me, Brinton."
"You'd better go down to Bayport and interview her yourself," said the lawyer. "And, by the way, I hear she's a queer one – something of a bird, in fact."
"Bird?"
"Well, a vixen. They say so. All the same, she's doing a lot of real good with her money."
"How do you mean?"
"She's established a sort of home for the offspring of vicious and degenerate parents. It's really quite a wonderful combination of clinic and training school where suspected or plainly defective children are brought to be taught and to remain under observation – really a finely conceived charity, I understand. Why not call on her?"
"Very well," said Cleland, reluctantly, not caring very much about encountering "vixens" and "birds" of the female persuasion.
Except for this paternal aunt and the Grismers, there turned out to be no living human being related to the child Stephanie.
Once assured of this, John Cleland undertook the journey to Bayport, running down in his car one morning, and determined that a combination of mild dignity and gallant urbanity should conquer any untoward symptoms which this "bird" might develop.
When he arrived at the entrance to the place, a nurse on duty gave him proper directions how to find Miss Quest, who was out about the grounds somewhere.
He found her at last, in nurse's garb, marching up and down the gravel paths of the "Common Sense Home for Defectives," as the institution was called.
She was pruning privet hedges. She had a grim face, a belligerent eye, and she stood clicking her pruning shears aggressively as he approached, hat in hand.
"Miss Quest, I presume?" he inquired.
"I'm called Sister Rose," she answered shortly.
"By any other name – " began Cleland, gallantly, but checked himself, silenced by the hostility in her snapping black eyes.
"What do you wish?" she demanded impatiently.
Cleland, very red, swallowed his irritation:
"I came here in regard to your niece – "
"Niece? I haven't any!"
"I beg your pardon; I mean your great-niece – "
"What do you mean? I haven't any that I know of."
"Her name is Stephanie Quest."
"Harry Quest's child? Has he really got a baby? I thought he was lying! He's such a liar – how was I to know that he has a baby?"
"You didn't know it, then?"
"No. He wrote about a child. Of course, I supposed he was lying. That was before I went abroad."
"You've been abroad?"
"I have."
"Long?"
"Several years."
"How long since you've heard from Harry Quest?"
"Several years – a dozen, maybe. I suppose he's living on what I settled on him. If he needed money I'd hear from him soon enough."
"He doesn't need money, now. He doesn't need anything more from anybody. But his little daughter does."
"Is Harry dead?" she asked sharply.
"Very."
"And – that hussy he married – "
"Equally defunct. I believe it was suicide."
"How very nasty!"
"Or," continued Cleland, "it may have been suicide and murder."
"Nastier still!" She turned sharply aside and stood clicking her shears furiously. After a silence: "I'll take the baby," she said in an altered voice.
"She's eleven years old."
"I forgot. I'll take her anyway. She's probably a defective – "
"She is not!" retorted Cleland so sharply that Sister Rose turned on him in astonishment.
"Madame," he said, "I want a little child to bring up. I have chosen this one. I possess a comfortable fortune. I offer to bring her up with every advantage, educate her, consider her as my own child, and settle upon her for life a sum adequate for her maintenance. I have the leisure, the inclination, the means to do these things. But you, Madame, are too busy to give this child the intimate personal attention that all children require – "
"How do you know I am?"
"Because your time is already dedicated, in a larger sense, to those unhappy children who need you more than she does.
"Because your life is already consecrated to this noble charity of which you are founder and director. A world of unfortunates is dependent on you. If, therefore, I offer to lighten your burden by relieving you of one responsibility, you could not logically decline or disregard my appeal to your reason – " His voice altered and became lower: "And, Madame, I already love the child, as though she were my own."
After a long silence Sister Rose said:
"It isn't anything you've advanced that influences me. It's my – failure – with Harry. Do you think it hasn't cut me to the – the soul?" she demanded fiercely, flinging the handful of clipped twigs onto the gravel. "Do you think I am heartless because I said his end was a nasty one! It was! Let God judge me. I did my best."
Cleland remained silent.
"As a matter of fact, I don't care what you think," she added. "What concerns me is that, possibly – probably, this child would be better off with you… You're the John Cleland, I presume."
He seemed embarrassed.
"You collect prints and things?"
"Yes, Madame."
"Then you are the John Cleland. Why not say so?"
He bowed.
"Very well, then! What you've said has in it a certain amount of common sense. I have, in a way, dedicated my life to all unfortunate children; I might not be able to do justice to Harry's child – give her the intimate personal care necessary – without impairing this work which I have undertaken, and to which I am devoting my fortune."
There was another silence, during which Sister Rose snapped her shears viciously and incessantly. Finally, she looked up at Cleland:
"Does the child care for you?"
"I – think so."
"Very well. But I sha'n't permit you to adopt her."
"Why not?"
"I may want her myself when I'm too old and worn out to work here. I wish her to keep her name."
"Madame – "
"I insist. What did you say her name is? Stephanie? Then her name is to remain Stephanie Quest."
"If you insist – "
"I do! And that's flat! And you need not settle an income on her – "
"I shall do so," he interrupted firmly. "I have ample means to provide for the future of anybody dependent on me, Madame."
"Do you presume to dictate to me what I shall do concerning my own will?" she demanded; and her belligerent eyes fairly snapped at him.
"Do what you like, Madame, but it isn't necessary to – "
"Don't instruct me, Mr. Cleland!"
"Very well, Madame – "
"I shall do as I always have done, and that is exactly as I please," she said, glancing at him. "And if I choose to provide for the child in my will, I shall do so without requesting your opinion. Pray understand me, Mr. Cleland. If I let you have her it is only because I am self-distrustful. I failed with Harry Quest. I have not sufficient confidence in myself to risk failure with his daughter.
"Let the matter stand this way until I can consult my attorney and investigate the entire affair. Take her into your home. But remember that she is to bear her own name; that the legal guardianship shall be shared by you and me; that I am to see her when I choose, take her when I choose… Probably I shall not choose to do so. All the same, I retain my liberty of action."
Cleland said in a low voice:
"It would be – heartless – if – "
"I'm not heartless," she rejoined tartly. "Therefore, you need not worry, Mr. Cleland. If you love her and she loves you – I tell you you need not worry. All I desire is to retain my liberty of action. And I intend to do it. And that settles it!"
Cleland Senior went home in his automobile.
In a few days the last legal objection was removed. There were no other relatives, no further impediments; merely passionate tears from the child at parting with Schmidt; copious, fat tears from the carpenter's wife; no emotion from the children; none from the canary bird.
CHAPTER IV
In February the child departed from the Schmidts' in charge of an elderly, indigent gentlewoman, recommended to Mr. Cleland at an exorbitant salary. Mrs. Westlake was her name; she inhabited, with a mild and useless husband, the ancient family mansion in Pelham. And here the preliminary grooming of Stephanie Quest began amid a riot of plain living, lofty thinking, excision of double negatives acquired at hazard, and a hospital régime of physical scrubbing.
During February and March the pitiless process continued, punctuated by blessed daily visits from Cleland Senior, laden with offerings, edible and otherwise. And before April, he had won the heart of Stephanie Quest.
The first night that she slept under Cleland's roof, he was so excited that he sat up in the library all night, listening for fear she should awake, become frightened, and cry out.
She slept perfectly. Old Janet had volunteered as nurse and wardrobe mistress, and a new parlour-maid took her place. Janet, aged sixty, had been his dead wife's childhood nurse, his son's nurse in babyhood: then she had been permitted to do in the household whatever she chose; and she chose to dust the drawing-room, potter about the house, and offer herself tea between times.
Janet, entering the library at six in the morning, found Mr. Cleland about ready to retire to bed after an all-night vigil.
"What do you think of what I've done – bringing this child here?" he demanded bluntly, having lacked the courage to ask Janet's opinion before.
Janet could neither read nor write. Her thoughts were slow in crystallizing. For a few moments master and ancient servant stood confronted there in the dusk of early morning.
"Maybe it was God's will, sor," she said at last, in her voice which age had made a little rickety.
"You don't approve?"
"Ah, then Mr. Cleland, sor, was there annything you was wishful for but the dear Missis approved?"
That answer took him entirely by surprise. He had never even thought of looking at the matter from such an angle.
And after Janet went away into the dim depths of the house, he remained standing there, pondering the old Irishwoman's answer.
Suddenly his heart grew full and the tears were salt in his throat – hot and wet in his closed eyes.
"Not that memory and love are lessened, dear," he explained with tremulous, voiceless lips, " – but you have been away so long, and here on earth time moves slowly without you – dearest – dearest – "
"Th' divil's in that young wan," panted Janet outside his chamber door. "She won't be dressed! She's turning summersalts on her bed, God help her!"
"Did you bathe her?" demanded Cleland, hurriedly buttoning his collar and taking one of the scarfs offered by old Meacham.
"I did, sor – and it was like scrubbing an eel. Not that she was naughty, sor – the darlint! – only playful-like and contrayry – all over th' tub, under wather and atop, and pretindin' the soap and brush was fishes and she another chasin' them – "
"Janet!"
