jane was almost always the first of the garden girls to come down in the morning. she was as full of moods, varying in light and shade, as the surface of a pool overhung with branches. throughout some of her days she chattered and sang in the wildest of high spirits from dawn till dark. again she fell into deep wells of silence where nothing could reach her; remote and inaccessible she wrapped herself in her own thoughts, refusing to amuse or to be amused on these days. whatever her mood, after the spring had come she was faithful to her flower-bed in the garden. mary worked in hers more steadily, florimel with greater gusto—when she worked—but jane gave her bed the place of a beloved volume of poetry, in which she read daily. when the birds and the eastern sky were timing up together, in sound and colour, jane sped lightly down the stairs and outdoors to look for overnight developments in her flowers and to sing above them.
“you sing to your posies for all the world the way the birds sing to waken the spring flowers!” mary once said to her.
“if i’m a bird i’m a red-headed woodpecker, molly darling, and he doesn’t sing,” retorted jane, rumpling her brilliant locks.
the morning after mark’s arrival jane’s custom held good. before any one else was downstairs she opened the door and went out into the fragrance and music of the late may morning, into the lovely old garden. had there been any one there to see, they would have noticed that jane wore her new brown street gown, not one of the simple chambrays in which she ordinarily said good-morning to her seedlings, who waited in bed for her coming—in fact, stayed in bed all day.
in a few moments there was some one to note this variation. florimel followed jane into the garden shortly, and instantly was upon her with an accusation.
“you’re dressed up, jane garden; where’re you going?” she cried.
“florimel, don’t speak so loud,” jane frowned at her. “i don’t want mary to know, not till i get back; of course i’ll tell her afterward. i won’t tell you where i’m going; then you can39 truthfully say you don’t know where i am when they ask.”
“they won’t get a chance to ask; i’m going with you,” announced florimel.
“indeed you’re not! you can’t! i wouldn’t mind, i’d like to have you, but you simply can’t,” declared jane. “don’t be a nuisance and a baby, mel; i can’t let you go, or i would,” she added out of her experiences in florimel’s possibilities.
“i simply will go, unless you tell me where it is you’re going, and i see for myself i can’t go or i don’t want to,” declared florimel. “of course that’s plain silly, jane. i can go wherever you go. if you tell me where it is and i do happen to stay at home i won’t tell mary or any one. but if you don’t tell me i’ll tell what you just said and get them all stirred up—mary, win, anne, everybody. and you know what i say i’ll do, i’ll do.”
jane knew precisely this truth. “i can’t take you, florimel, because you’re too young,” she said unwisely.
“two years and three months younger than you are!” interposed florimel scornfully. “what’s that!”
“a lot when i’m only fifteen,” said jane. “i’m going before breakfast; i’ve had all i want out of the pantry. well, then, mel, i’ll tell you, but it’s on your word of honour not to say anything till i do—you promised!”
“don’t i know i promised?” retorted florimel. “and don’t you know wild horses and hot pokers couldn’t get me to tell, if i said i wouldn’t? then hurry up!”
“i’ve always thought i had talent to act,” jane announced. she continued, disregarding florimel’s hastily stifled laughter: “i thought, maybe, i ought to go on the stage—of course not yet, but after i was, say three years older, and had studied for it. there’s a company in town now—acted in the crystal theatre last night. they are going away this morning on the 10.10. the leading lady’s name is alyssa aldine—i think aldine always sounds like nice people; i suppose because the aldine editions of books are so famous. then i read such nice-sounding things about her in the vineclad post that i knew she wasn’t one of the ordinary actresses; she must be beautiful and clever. and it came to me like a flash that i would slip off early this morning, and get to the hotel before they leave, and ask to see miss aldine and get her to tell me frankly whether she thinks i ought41 to go on the stage. a girl ought to try to find out just as early as she can what is her work in the world. i suppose i could recite and sing to miss aldine, if i had to, though i’d dread it. you see there aren’t many chances to get good advice about the stage, here; it isn’t often that talented, refined ladies come to vineclad to act, they say.”
florimel had heard this speech of jane’s with utter amazement and disgust on her handsome face, which, childish though it was, was quite capable of expressing disgust with its black eyes and curling red lips.
“well, jane! well, jane garden!” florimel cried scornfully the instant jane paused. “talk about my being younger than you are! why, you’re a baby! haven’t you heard win talk about the companies that come to the crystal? one-night-stand companies, he says, that travel about in the country towns, are never any good! we never go. the idea of your going to call on this actress and asking her—well——” florimel broke off, unable to express herself more satisfyingly.
“i told you, florimel, that i read about miss aldine in the post and she is not one of that ordinary kind,” said jane severely. “i am going. it can’t do any harm, and it may do good. don’t you tell mary till i get back; don’t tell her at all; i will. but you can’t go with me.”
“i can and i will,” said florimel in the tone which her family had learned to recognize as final. “i’m going to see you don’t get kidnapped by these queer people. take anne, if you’re bound to go! but you won’t! so i’m going. i know you, jane garden. when you got there you’d double up, you’d be so scared. that’s you all over, getting up some perfectly crazy idea like this and then all but dying doing it, when there never was the least bit of sense in doing it, anyway! i’ll get a sandwich and my hat. crazy jane, that’s what you are!”
florimel walked off rigid with determination, excitement, and disapproval, leaving jane with a sense of their youngest’s competence, and relief that, after all, she was not going upon her adventure alone. florimel returned with her sandwich and her hat disposed each in its proper place and manner. the sandwich had become plural; luckily the hat had not. “i put a scrawl on mary’s napkin telling her we had gone downtown on a secret errand, but would be back by ten,” said florimel. “good thing i didn’t run into anne; she’d have been hard to quiet down. you’ve got on your street suit, and i haven’t, but i guess this is good enough.”
“you look very nice in that green and white chambray, mel,” said jane meekly. and the sisters sallied forth by the side gate of the garden into the quiet, shaded street.
it was a long walk to the heart of the small town where stood the waldorf, vineclad’s shabby and unique hotel, near the crystal theatre, which escaped by not much more than its name being merely a small town hall. hollyhock house stood well beyond the collected business of vineclad, out beyond the smaller homes of the place, built where acres for its setting and for its garden had been obtainable.
jane and florimel timed their progress to get to the hotel before eight, but they fell below their estimate of time required and got to the hotel somewhat before half-past seven.
“good morning, young ladies,” said the clerk, as the girls halted before his desk. “you are familiar to me, yet i cannot place you. what can i do for you? are you denizens of our lovely town?”
“yes,” said jane, without further enlightening him. “i want to see miss aldine, miss alyssa aldine. she doesn’t know me, but please44 ask if i may see her—on business, important business.”
the clerk leaned over his desk as if to take the young girls into his confidence and jane and florimel fell back a few steps.
“why, bless your lovely face and heart,” he said, “what time do you think the perfesh, which stop here, rises?—especially the lady perfeshes? just in time to take the train! just—barely—in—time—to—take—the—train, hustling!” he, too, fell back at this and regarded the girls triumphantly. “breakfast in bed—also in curl papers—and a hustle to make the train. that’s the racket. grand show last night; was you to it? pity! grand show. now, i’ll tell you what to do. you go sit down comfortable in two of the waldorf’s rockers, in the parlour, and wait calm and easy. and i’ll get a message up to miss aldine just’s soon as i think she will stand for it, and see if she won’t meet you. peachy lady, she is, but i’ll tell her there’s two little girls here worth her looking at. is that a go? best i can do.”
“thank you,” said jane faintly, already dismayed by the unaccustomed atmosphere which she was breathing. “yes, thank you; we’ll wait.”
“it’s all right; it’s very early, earlier than we thought we’d get here. don’t hurry,” florimel supplemented jane with decision. “for goodness’ sake, jane, now you are here, don’t fade right out! didn’t i say you’d be like that?” she added in a severe whisper as jane and she followed their guide to the overwhelming red plush of the waldorf parlour.
the time of waiting seemed desperately long to both girls. the grandfather clock ticking in the corner—it had been manufactured to sell with a large order of cigars in the most recent of periods—seemed to accomplish less by its seconds than any other clock jane and florimel had ever met. at last an hour passed, and twenty minutes followed it. then the clerk returned with a smiling face and the important manner of a triumphant ambassador.
“you’re to come right up to her room,” he whispered, not because there was any one else there to hear, but because his words were too precious to be scattered broadcast. “i done my best for you, and she’ll see you.”
jane and florimel arose at once. jane was so pale that the clerk noticed it. “don’t be scared,” he advised her kindly. “she’s easy to get acquainted with.” he took the girls46 up one flight of stairs and along a dusty corridor, carpeted in red and smelling of ancient histories.
“here’s the room!” announced the clerk, swinging around a right angle turn in the corridor and pausing before a door at the end of the wing thus reached. “number 22!” he added, as if announcing the capital prize in a lottery. he knocked for the girls, seeing them overwhelmed, and withdrew with a wink that might have meant anything.
“stay out!” cried a feminine voice.
rightly construing this as humour, jane timidly opened the door. she saw before her a blowsy looking woman, in a pink kimono, its thin quality and flowing amplitude, as well as its heavy, once-white lace trimming, adding to the extreme rotundity of its wearer. her hair was in curl papers, her feet in soiled pink “mules.” beyond her sat a small woman, thin and tired looking, but animated, and still another with an indefinite face. three men also adorned the room, all smoking; one of them was helping the indefinite woman to cram garments, that had not been folded, into a suitcase.
“well, you pretty pair!” exclaimed the wearer of the pink kimono. “say, petey, what d’you47 know about this? some lookers to drop in at this hour in a deserted village, what?”
“right-o! nice little pair, eh, nettie?” the man addressed threw the question back at the pink kimono; plainly this was their preferred way of conversing.
“may we—— is miss aldine—— may we see miss aldine?” stammered jane.
an exceedingly pudgy hand, decorated with several rings of great distinctness but little distinction, and souvenirs of buttered toast, dramatically struck the pink kimono where it was pinned together with a rhinestone bar.
“i am miss aldine—on the stage—alyssa aldine, leading lady of the comp’ny. in private i’m mrs. pete mivle—he’s sydney fleming on the stage, plays leadin’ man to my heroines.” mrs. mivle beamed proudly on her pete, who assumed a look reminiscent of his more picturesque rôles and twirled his moustache with a hand upon which a diamond of at least three karats gleamed, genuine but yellowish.
“got that off a chap that went stoney broke, at a bargain,” he exclaimed, seeing jane’s eyes fastened upon it with what he took for awe.
“say, what d’you want?” continued miss aldine, actually mrs. mivle, kindly, but in a48 businesslike tone. “not that we ain’t pleased to death to see you, but you must of had an objec’ in comin’—or was it for my autograph? pete writes ’em.”
“oh, no!” cried jane, dismayed to hear sounds in florimel’s throat that meant she was suffocating with laughter. “i came—i thought——” she stopped.
“say it!” advised the small, thin woman who looked past forty, and who played the young girl parts in the company’s repertory because of her diminutive size. “we’ve breakfasted; we won’t eat you! get it out of your system.”
“i meant to ask your advice about studying for the stage,” jane said, by a supreme effort. “but there’s no use troubling you; ever so much obliged.”
“cold feet so soon?” suggested peter mivle kindly. “lots of kids get stage struck! if you wanted to follow the legitimate, we could use you. of course you’re too young, but there are ways of dodging the law. you’d make a great team, red and black, blond and brunette. sisters?”
“oh, no; i meant to study to be an actress when i’m older, if it was surely my proper49 talent,” said jane. “never mind; thank you ever so much.”
mrs. mivle laughed. “lady macbeth and all that kind, eh?” she suggested. “we play old comedy and society plays, like ‘east lynne,’ ‘ten nights in a bar room,’ and so on. shakespeare’s no good; we’ve got some funny ones, too. take it from me, kid, it’s hard work keepin’ on the go every day, sleepin’ in damp sheets and beds that are about as soft as coal beds half the time. one-night-stand companies don’t find many snaps layin’ along the tracks. and there ain’t much in it. but we have good times enough together; no jealousy nor meanness in our gang. you drop the stage notion and trim hats! easier, and you can stick to one boardin’-house and make good money. ain’t you two got a home, pretty girls like you? you’d think anybody’d have adopted ’em,” she added, turning again to peter.
“oh, yes,” cried jane, “we have a lovely—a home. we—i mean i only wanted your advice——” she stopped again.
florimel could not resist her temptation. “my sister thought perhaps she had so much talent for acting that it was her duty to go on the stage. she read about miss aldine in the vineclad post and came to ask her advice, whether she thought she ought to study for the stage. that’s all.”
florimel’s eyes danced and mrs. mivle and the elderly actress of youthful parts twinkled back at her.
“the little one has the drop on you, my dear,” mrs. mivle said joyously to jane. “she’s got practical sense. i guess you’re up in the clouds; red-haired girls often are. but you’ve got hair that ’twould be worth being up into anything—or up against anything to have! if you’ve got a good home, what you botherin’ about? stick to it; that’s what i say. i’m an artist all right, all right; you read what your paper says about me. but no art in mine, if i had the means to settle right down and bake pies like mother used to make. must you go? well, good-bye and good luck. so long! hope to meet you again. come see us act if ever we take in this town on this circuit again. we’re the real thing, if i do say it!” the others of the company bade jane and florimel good-bye, shaking hands with them with the utmost cordiality, and peter mivle, or “sydney fleming,” escorted them to the stairs.
jane heard the laugh that arose behind them51 in the room they had left, but she also heard “miss aldine” say heartily: “perfect beauts, that’s what!” and the voice of the little woman came out to them, saying pensively: “oh, nettie mivle, ain’t it fine to be young like that, and not acting it!”
jane and florimel walked swiftly out of the little hotel with the great name, escaping from the clerk’s evident desire to learn the result of their call and its object, and from the idle lads who were gathering around the desk to see the actors, whose “show” they had seen the night before, come out and to compare actual appearances with those behind the footlights. the walk home was a silent one for jane, but at intervals florimel burst into laughter that was irresistible to passers-by and irrepressible to florimel. mary was busy when they came in, arranging the flowers which the garden yielded; not many yet in variety, but generous in quantity, even in may.
“where can you two have been?” cried mary, looking up with her sweet face smiling at them in a way that seemed to match the flowers beneath her cool finger-tips. “and so early? what are you up to, garden girls? have you had any breakfast, you rogues?”
“oh, mary, wait till you hear!” cried florimel, throwing her hat in one direction and herself in another, on a chair. “we’ve been to see miss aldine; jane wanted to be examined, but she changed her mind. petey mivle—that’s sydney fleming—said she——”
“florimel, what can you be talking about?” cried mary. “who are all these people? examined by whom, and for what?”
“oh, i’ll tell you, mary,” jane took up the theme impatiently. “florimel is so silly! of course it was funny, only how was i to know miss aldine was mrs. mivle and that what the post said wasn’t so?” jane laughed at herself, her sense of humour too strong to allow her to feel annoyed with florimel long.
“positively i believe you’ve both gone crazy together, over night!” cried mary. “miss aldine is mrs. mivle, you say? and florimel is talking of ‘petey mivle’—like a schoolmate—and the post—— hurry the story!”
“sit down, mary, and i’ll harrow your young blood!” declared jane, and forthwith gave her sister an account of her resolution to seek a great actress to ask advice on her career, and of the visit to the waldorf. jane told her story so well that mary and florimel and anne, who had53 come in to find out what her younger charges had been doing, were all three in convulsions. it might have warranted any one in thinking that jane was right in considering the stage her vocation.
“oh, me, oh, me!” sighed mary, emerging from the sofa pillows into which she had helplessly fallen. “you do such mad things, janie! and you are so wilful! you ought not to have started off alone on such an errand, to people you knew absolutely nothing about! florimel is a headstrong child, but even she is more prudent. they must be kind people, if they are untidy, and flashy, and trashy! i’m glad they were so nice to you. please, jane, settle down and stop being restless-minded!”
“can’t do it,” said jane promptly. “i suppose there’s fire inside my head and the roots of my hair are in it. that’s why i’m always crackling off in explosions, and why my hair is red.”
“and i suppose we want you to be just what you are, if we tell the truth,” added mary as she went out of the room. she could not bear to seem to criticise jane or florimel, being sensitively alive to a dread of hurting them, and conscious of the slight difference in their ages.
54 florimel ran after mary, and anne kennington turned to jane.
“what put the stage into your head, jane?” she asked. “were you thinking of your mother? you don’t look like her, but you are more like her, in some ways, than either of the others.”
“my mother?” echoed jane. “mercy, no, anne! why should i?”
“well, of course she did not go on the stage, yet singing is, in a way, like it,” said anne. “you know your mother was a singer and she couldn’t keep away from the old life: singing, and applause, and all that, after she was a widow. you know she left you here to go back to it.”
“yes, i knew all that,” said jane slowly, “but i seem to have to try to know it; it isn’t real to me. i never can make my mother real to me, anne. you knew her. i wish you could make me feel what she was like.”
“knew her? i came over with her before she married and i stayed with her till she went back to england. she left me; never i her,” said anne warmly. “just a slender bit of a thing was she, like a primrose, one that you couldn’t help spoiling, such coaxing ways she had and such a pretty face, with a little droop of her shoulders and a fall in her voice as if she55 begged a body to be good to her. i’d have cut off my head for her willingly. so i stayed, and did my best for her babies, without her.”
“and what a best!” cried jane, with a flashing look of grateful love. “oh, i wish i had seen her! you make her a darling, anne; just a sort of toy mother, to be petted and to be proud of! why did she die, anne? do you know? no one ever told us; not even mary knows about her death.”
“i never heard one word about her dying, jane; never the time, nor place, nor any syllable,” said anne truthfully. “i mustn’t stand clacketing here any longer, jane; i’ve more to do than i’ve minutes, though the good lord gives to each of us all the time there is, if only we think about it.”
anne hastened away, and jane walked over to the window, absently watching mark walpole returning from his call on mr. moulton, though without consciously seeing him, nor remembering that she had been deeply interested in the result of this visit.
“what a pretty little toy mother! how i wish i had her, or had even seen her!” thought jane, swinging the shade pull. “and now mary can’t remember her more than as a shadow before a mirror! oh, little coaxing mother, i wonder why you left your three girl babies? perhaps because you were only a girl yourself. but we lost something we can never get back.”
