University of Virginia Library

8. ARABELLA IS INTRODUCED

"Carrie," said Mrs. Winslow in her soft, carefully modulated voice, "you are to take your cousin to the school-room and introduce her to the boys."

"Yes, mamma," answered the little girl, speaking in clear, distinct tones, and offering her hand to Arabella. "Will you come, cousin?"

Arabella took the offered hand stiffly, uncomfortably, fully realizing for the first time the difference between herself and these new relations to whom she had been introduced. They went up the stairs together, their feet lost in the thick pile of the Axminster carpet, wherein even the country girl's thick-soled, clubby shoes made no impression. "I have two brothers upstairs," said Carrie, volunteering the information as they proceeded. "Reginald is the older, and George is next."

Arabella made no comment.

"Have you got any brothers?" the little girl inquired next.

"No," said Arabella, "I have nobody."

The unconscious pathos of the tone and words struck even her inexperienced listener.

"I am so sorry for you," remarked Carrie. "Do you live all alone?"

"No. Of course, there is Mrs. Christie."

Carrie looked puzzled.

"She is the one that came with me to-day. And then there is her husband, Mr. Christie, but he is old, and hardly ever speaks."

Arabella added this last in a burst of confidence.

"I suppose old gentlemen don't care much for little girls," Carrie said, "unless they are their grandchildren."

By this time they had reached the school-room door, whence proceeded a loud, shuffling sound, almost the first that Arabella had heard in this noiseless house. When the door was opened the cause of this noise was revealed. It was a thick-set, chubby boy of about thirteen, who was turning a series of somersaults, while astride upon a chair, and observing his gyrations, was a tall, slim lad, evidently a couple of years older. As the two girls appeared upon the threshold the tall lad stood up, while the other paused in one of his acrobatic feats, resting upon his hands, head downward, and peering up at the new arrivals. He slowly let himself down and arose.

"Boys," said Carrie, "this is our cousin, Arabella."

"Our cousin!" cried the short lad, drawing near and gazing at her. Arabella returned the gaze with something of defiance.

"Well," cried he, "you are a guy! What a queer hat you've got on; and such frocks; and just look at your shoes!"

Arabella grew crimson with mortification, and the tears forced themselves into her eyes. How fervently she wished that she had got those new things that Alicia Norris had chosen for her. As he spoke the cruel words, George broke into a roar of laughter, at which the elder brother stepped forward, and seizing him by the collar, swung him aside.

"You unmannerly cub," he cried, "how dare you speak so to your cousin."

And then he extended his hand.

"How do you do, cousin?" he said, politely.

"Very well," Arabella strove to answer, but her voice choked and broke, while Carrie, looking at her sympathizingly, apostrophized her brother George.

"Oh, what a shame, Georgie, to be so rude."

"I don't care," said Georgie, "she is dressed queerly; and her face is red, like a cook."

Again the elder boy interposed, trying to silence the incorrigible youngster, and both he and Carrie, who was plainly vexed and mortified, strove to lavish their attentions upon Arabella. But the iron had entered into her soul. The boy had been rude, and the others were kind and polite, but the miserable fact remained that her face was red, and that her clothes were queer and different from the others. Therefore, as Georgie stood glowering in the corner, Arabella said to him, and not to the others:

"The clothes I've got on are the best I have. We bought some others to-day, but they're not ready yet, so how could I help it?"

Her protest was indignant, and at the same time it was appealing, and choked by the tears of mortification which rose to her eyes. Georgie, by a swift movement, came over to her.

"Well," said he, "of course, if you couldn't help it; if they're the best things you've got, there's nothing to be said. And you have nice eyes, and perhaps your face is only sunburned."

"It is sun-burned," Arabella said, brightening, and less awed by this boy who spoke the brutal truth than by the others, "for my forehead's quite white under my hair. And the others — I mean Mrs. Christie and her sister — said that I was not to wear these clothes any more."

"Oh, then you'll be all right!" declared George, confidently. "I don't care much about clothes myself. They say I'm always tearing mine, or getting stains on them. But you did look mighty queer, and nurse is always telling us that we mustn't play with children that wear shabby clothes and rough shoes."

Arabella was conscious of another pang at finding herself thus thrust out from the sphere to which these children belonged, but her first passionate resentment against this boy, which had flamed up in her heart, died suddenly, and in an odd way she felt more at ease with him than with the slim and gentlemanly boy, who closely resembled his uncle Robert, below stairs, and who could never, under any circumstances, have committed a rude action. Arabella, in her impulsive fashion, already loved and admired the gentle little girl who had seemed so sorry for her, but it was at a distance, almost as if she had been one of the characters in her favorite fairy-book.

Amity being once restored, the four were soon engaged in a merry play with one of the nursery games. The prim and sedate nurse, who had been sitting in an adjoining room with one of the housemaids and giving her a graphic and humorous account of Arabella's appearance and costume, now entered the play-room. She begged of Miss Carrie not to let the "little lady" spoil her good clothes by sitting down on the floor. As she spoke thus, George looked up at her with a quick, quizical glance.

"Arabella hasn't got any good clothes on today," he declared.

"Oh, fie, for shame, Master George!" cried the nurse.

"But she's all right, anyway," continued the incorrigible. "I like her, and she says she'll be better dressed next time she comes."

"You must excuse him, miss," cried the nurse, addressing Arabella. "He says such very rude things, but he has a good heart."

"You said yourself," argued George, "that we mustn't play with children who wore shoes like that," pointing as he spoke to Arabella's, "because it would make us rough."

"You are very naughty," chided the nurse, "and I hope the young lady won't mind."

"I don't mind, now," Arabella said, "because after all, it's true, and I can't help it."

"Let us go on with the game," suggested Reginald, believing that to be the surest way of suppressing his brother and relieving an awkward situation. "It's your play, Carrie."

The game was continued with zest, and Arabella, who was naturally genial and sympathetic, would have thoroughly enjoyed almost her first experience of playing with other children, except during recess at school, had it not been for the soreness of her heart and the bitter mortification, which had left behind its sting. Children are so often unconsciously cruel to each other, even when the barbed arrows they employ are gilded with truth. How much more so when they are false, wanton and malicious.

Meantime, the grown-ups below stairs, in solemn conclave, received the proofs in favor of Arabella, though, in point of fact, scarcely a doubt had remained as to her complete identification when Mr. Brown was instructed to introduce her. The additional evidence supplied by Mrs. Christie, coinciding in every particular with that already in possession of the lawyers, together with the marked resemblance borne by the countrified and sun-burned girl to the late Jack Allston, made assurance doubly sure. There could be no reasonable doubt that Arabella was the daughter of the deeply offending, yet favorite, son of the recently deceased head of the family, the multi-millionaire, Lawrence Allston.

He had broken with his son on the occasion of the latter's marriage to a penniless and obscure girl, and as a compensation he had left to the child of this marriage a large share of his fortune. The child had been known to exist, though after the premature death of her parents and the removal of those who had temporarily taken her in charge to another city, her whereabouts had been unknown, and it was only through the exertions of detectives that she had been traced to the Foundling Asylum and thence to the dwelling of the Christies.

Apart from all other considerations, Mr. Allston had made it imperative upon all the relations to receive the girl, and to treat her with kindness and consideration, under penalty of losing that which they already possessed, and other favors and privileges which awaited Masters Reginald and George and Miss Caroline and others interested, on their respective coming of age.

The will was at curious one — a distinct effort to repair an old wrong, to make the child of Jack's unpalatable marriage a definite and important member of the family, with power, moreover, to do precisely what she pleased in so far as was consistent, as the document declared, with "duty and propriety."

Arabella was at liberty to live wheresoever she pleased. She was to be offered the option of a home with any of the family, but she was free to refuse, provided she elected to live with reputable people and in a becoming manner.

The other heirs, were, without exception, well-disposed and conscientious people, with a strong desire to do the right thing and act honorably towards everyone. Not one amongst them had ever consciously injured another, nor were they capable of meanness. Still there is little doubt that in the heart of Mrs. Winslow, at least, was an unspoken, probably an unacknowledged regret, that Anna Rosetta had been found, and a fear lest she should be introduced into her well-regulated, if conventional household.

When Arabella was brought down again to the library, where her elders were assembled, she found their numbers increased by the arrival of the family lawyer, Mr. Van Duzen, employer of the smart clerk. He had come to give the weight of his importance to the final deliberations. He sat now, with spectacles on nose, caressing his clean-shaven chin and bending his formidable eyes, before which many a criminal had quailed, on Arabella. The little girl was more shame-faced and self-conscious than ever, for now she knew the full truth, which these well-bred elders had failed to make known to her, but which had been blurted out by George. They had never, by word or sign, displayed their disapproval of her dress or manner. Yet she knew now, what possibly she had dimly guessed before, that not only was she different from these people, but that her costume, her hat, her shoes, her red and weather-beaten face, must be extremely distasteful to their eyes.

She felt this new truth with the keen and poignant mortification of a sensitive and intelligent child, and it far out-weighed, in her mind, any realization of her own present importance or the knowledge that she really belonged to these grand people, and was one of themselves. Therefore the next half hour was one of the most trying and uncomfortable of her life, as she always afterwards remembered. She got as near as she could to Mrs. Christie, who was still outwardly brave and undisturbed, but who, as Arabella now perceived with a quick pang of understanding and of sympathy, was also roughly and meanly clad in garments which were altogether out of date.

The lawyer, Mr. Van Duzen, treated Arabella with curious deference. He who was in a position to know the whole story could not help feeling a distinct regard for the power of wealth, the golden garment with which this hitherto nameless waif had been suddenly invested. He was aware that she was by far the wealthiest person present, and that her magnate of a grandfather had bestowed upon her special powers of aggrandizement or of privilege for others. What, then, did clothes matter, or awkward rusticity, or bashfulness, or oddity of manner? All those things were certain to disappear, or if they did not it mattered little.

To the others present these things mattered much. Many things mattered, indeed, besides the mere possession of wealth, which could only be the ultimate goal of very ordinary and uncultured beings. They were, however, resolved to do their duty. Even Mrs. Winslow, with her chilling artificiality of manner and possible absence of that quality known as heart, was prepared to accept Anna Rosetta precisely as her grandfather had desired. There they all sat, concealing their varying emotions under the same outward covering of good breeding, and awaiting the crucial moment when Arabella should make her decision.