“Jane, you’re a farce comedy! No wonder you act well—which is not the same as behaving well, miss! ‘A clam vow’ is an entirely new sort! And I certainly do not want you to take one. I see precisely what you mean by your voice being my proxy, my little glowing-haired poet, Jane, and it can be true; it is true; we’ll make it true! What dear children you are, all three of you! Mary, sweetheart, don’t look so troubled! It was bad, downright bad and wicked of me to cry like that. I’m happy now, truly. It was just a minute of wickedness! I felt as though I couldn’t bear it to hear Jane singing at less than half my age, and to know I was silenced forever! It isn’t that I’m not glad Jane can sing, but that I’m sorry that I can’t! But Jane found the word to the enigma; she has shown me how to be glad, and I am glad! I’ll let you use my voice, Janie, just as long as you want to—or as long as you can! People can’t always sing as long as they want to, my dear! And I’ll try to remember it is mine, not yours. I’m going to train you just as well as I know how; you must not sing much for two years. Then you shall be taught by better masters than I. I’m delighted! My voice, that I loved best of all earthly things, is not gone, but is transferred. And here’s another thing, children: if I had not come home when I could no longer use my voice I should never have known that it had been smuggled into the states—for I’m certain you didn’t pay the duty on it, Jane!”
“Not a penny, madrina!” declared Jane, with a glad look at Mary. This was the first time that their mother had spoken of her return to Vineclad as “coming home.”
“I think it was brought in, past the customs officers, in a baby’s shirt, and that they never noticed it, for I’ve had it ever so long, and when I found it, it was under a little soft shirt you put on me without noticing it, either; I believe you thought it a little squeaky squawk.”
From this hour there was a change in Mrs. Garden; she seemed happier, and her eyes followed Jane with new interest, she threw herself into the preparations for the Garden of Dreams with new zest. Jane’s brilliant beauty, her delicate grace, her luminous pallor, her radiant hair seemed to enthrall her mother, now that she had found them the casket of her lost voice. For Jane’s pretty fancy took hold of her mother’s imagination; it was plain that she was beginning to feel that her voice actually did live on in Jane, and to be comforted by the thought. Mary was still her mother’s comfort, her sweet reliance, as she was every one’s, but in Jane her mother seemed to find her own reincarnation.
Thus, with new pleasure and enthusiasm, the rehearsals for the entertainment in the Gardens’ old garden went on toward its perfecting.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“OUR ACTS OUR ANGELS ARE, OR GOOD OR ILL”
Vineclad bought tickets to the Garden of Dreams without stint. It had never suspected its own need of a Day Nursery, not even in its poorer neighbourhood, but it more than suspected its need of being entertained, and it aroused to seize its opportunity.
“It will take more than Joel Bell to restore the garden after the entertainment,” said Florimel ruefully.
“Oh, no!” cried Mary. “We wouldn’t have it if we thought so! Vineclad will keep to the paths and the grass, and the grass will spring up in the first rain, if it does get trodden down slightly. Little madrina, go away and rest; you look tired and you mustn’t be tired to-night, not the stage manager, costumer, dramatic and singer teacher, and leading lady!”