Phœbe understood. Mother had never liked these three who belonged to Daddy. Naturally, these three did not like Mother. Even for a girl of fourteen that was simple enough.
And Daddy—Phœbe understood that if she mentioned her mother to her father, the smile on his face, the light in his eyes, went instantly. And understanding that, she had come to speak seldom to him of the one whose absence was a constant hurt, an ache, a burden.
And now Sophie might not be taken into her confidence. For Sophie, voice lowered and tousled head bobbing close to Grandma’s, had been telling over all that Phœbe had told to her. Yes, telling it all over—and what else? For Grandma’s face, as Phœbe caught sight of it, was pale and stern, and her eyes were wide open and angry behind the round panes of her gold-rimmed spectacles.
Thereafter Phœbe drew more and more into herself. And what she had to confide, she confided to the big old doll that had come with her from New York, packed between two middy-blouses in the suit-case. The big old doll slept with her, too, in the wide bed. And for added comfort, Phœbe put the photograph under her pillow of nights. When the light was out and the covers over her head, she drew the photograph forth and laid her cheek upon it. Cool it was, and smooth, like the open palm of her mother’s hand. And held close, thus, it gave forth a faint perfume—a perfume which Mother had used—which brought Mother near in the dark of the big room—which brought the tears, too, the wearisome sobbing that at last, in turn, brought sleep; and sleep brought dreams—dear dreams of that loved, perfumed presence that now, at times, seemed scarcely more than the figure in a dream.
Phœbe had left New York just after the Christmas holidays—holidays packed with joys as they had never before been packed. For apart from the usual tree with the usual gifts, there had been other things—a horseback ride on a horse that belonged to one of Mother’s men friends; a score of drives in a wonderful limousine that was all blue without and a soft sand-color within, and ran as if shod with velvet, though with the strength, Mother said, of eighty horses! And there was a symphony concert, too, in Carnegie Hall, to which whole flocks of children came, and to which Phœbe wore her very best of all white dresses; and there was an afternoon at the Opera, where Mother had wonderful seats in a box which Phœbe understood cost a fortune, and Phœbe saw a great curtain lift to display castles, and forests, soldiers, knights and princesses. And, of course, there was that supremest of joys—the “movies.” In the holidays the “movies” were an everyday delight.
How she longed for them!
However, in the big house she spoke of them only to Sophie, and then in undertones. But in this matter, as in her separation from her mother, she was not to any degree submissive. Her silence indicated that she was; but she was merely biding her time.
It was in January that Phœbe came to the big house. And the something which she did not understand—that being watched, and passed from hand to hand, and kept apart from other children, and out of school—obtained through all the rest of the first month of the new year, and through February and into March.
Then, one day, a sudden change! A quick, bewildering, inexplicable, happy change!
First of all, to herald it, Uncle John telephoned a Miss Simpson, who conducted a school for young ladies, and held a long and animated conversation with that lady—a conversation in which “my niece” and “Phœbe” figured frequently. Next, Daddy appeared with an unclouded face, and sat down at the cottage-organ in Grandma’s sitting-room and played a little, and sang a song or two, Uncle Bob joining in. Next, wonder of wonders, Phœbe was sent to the nearest drug-store two blocks away, to get something for Grandma—and she was allowed to go by herself!