The Collected Works of Susan Coolidge: 7 Novels, 35+ Short Stories, Essays & Poems (Illustrated). Susan CoolidgeЧитать онлайн книгу.
much. She used to stop and stare at the windows, and wonder what was going on inside, till at last it seemed as if she must know. So one day she took some flowers and Victoria, her favorite doll, and boldly marched into the Spensers’ yard.
She tapped at the front door, but nobody answered. Then she tapped again. Still nobody answered. She tried the door. It was locked. So shouldering Victoria, she trudged round to the back of the house. As she passed the side-door she saw that it was open a little way. She knocked for the third time; and as no one came, she went in, and, passing through the little hall, began to tap at all the inside doors.
There seemed to be no people in the house. Katy peeped into the kitchen first. It was bare and forlorn. All sorts of dishes were standing about. There was no fire in the stove. The parlor was not much better. Mr. Spenser’s boots lay in the middle of the floor. There were dirty glasses on the table. On the mantel-piece was a platter with bones of meat upon it. Dust lay thick over everything, and the whole house looked as if it hadn’t been lived in for at least a year.
Katy tried several other doors, all of which were locked, and then she went up stairs. As she stood on the top step, grasping her flowers, and a little doubtful what to do next, a feeble voice from a bed-room called out:
“Who is there?”
This was Mrs. Spenser. She was lying on her bed, which was very tossed and tumbled, as if it hadn’t been made up that morning. The room was as disorderly and dirty as all the rest of the house, and Mrs. Spenser’s wrapper and night-cap were by no means clean, but her face was sweet, and she had beautiful curling hair, which fell over the pillow. She was evidently very sick, and altogether Katy felt sorrier for her than she had ever done for anybody in her life.
“Who are you, child?” asked Mrs. Spenser.
“I’m Dr. Carr’s little girl,” answered Katy, going straight up to the bed. “I came to bring you some flowers.” And she laid the bouquet on the dirty sheet.
Mrs. Spenser seemed to like the flowers. She took them up and smelled them for a long time, without speaking.
“But how did you get in?” she said at last.
“The door was open,” faltered Katy, who was beginning to feel scared at her own daring, “and they said you were sick, so I thought perhaps you would like me to come and see you.”
“You are a kind little girl,” said Mrs. Spenser, and gave her a kiss.
After this Katy used to go every day. Sometimes Mrs. Spenser would be up and moving feebly about; but more often she was in bed, and Katy would sit beside her. The house never looked a bit better than it did that first day, but after a while Katy used to brush Mrs. Spenser’s hair, and wash her face with the corner of a towel.
I think her visits were a comfort to the poor lady, who was very ill and lonely. Sometimes, when she felt pretty well, she would tell Katy stories about the time when she was a little girl and lived at home with her father and mother. But she never spoke of Mr. Spenser, and Katy never saw him except once, when she was so frightened that for several days she dared not go near the house. At last Cecy reported that she had seen him go off in the stage with his carpet-bag, so Katy ventured in again. Mrs. Spenser cried when she saw her.
“I thought you were never coming any more,” she said.
Katy was touched and flattered at having been missed, and after that she never lost a day. She always carried the prettiest flowers she could find, and if any one gave her a specially nice peach or a bunch of grapes, she saved it for Mrs. Spenser.
Aunt Izzie was much worried at all this. But Dr. Carr would not interfere. He said it was a case where grown people could do nothing, and if Katy was a comfort to the poor lady he was glad. Katy was glad too, and the visits did her as much good as they did Mrs. Spenser, for the intense pity she felt for the sick woman made her gentle and patient as she had never been before.
One day she stopped, as usual, on her way home from school. She tried the side-door – it was locked; the back-door – it was locked too. All the blinds were shut tight. This was very puzzling.
As she stood in the yard a woman put her head out of the window of the next house. “It’s no use knocking,” she said, “all the folks have gone away.”
“Gone away where?” asked Katy.
“Nobody knows,” said the woman; “the gentleman came back in the middle of the night, and this morning, before light, he had a wagon at the door, and just put in the trunks and the sick lady, and drove off. There’s been more than one a-knocking besides you, since then. But Mr. Pudgett, he’s got the key, and nobody can get in without goin’ to him.”
It was too true. Mrs. Spenser was gone, and Katy never saw her again. In a few days it came out that Mr. Spenser was a very bad man, and had been making false money – counterfeiting, as grown people call it. The police were searching for him, to put him in jail, and that was the reason he had come back in such a hurry and carried off his poor sick wife. Aunt Izzie cried with mortification, when she heard this. She said she thought it was a disgrace that Katy should have been visiting in a counterfeiter’s family. But Dr. Carr only laughed. He told Aunt Izzie that he didn’t think that kind of crime was catching, and for Mrs. Spenser, she was much to be pitied. But Aunt Izzie could not get over her vexation, and every now and then, when she was vexed, she would refer to the affair, though this all happened so long ago that most people had forgotten all about it, and Philly and John had stopped playing at “Putting Mr. Spenser in Jail,” which for a long time was one of their favorite games.
Katy always felt badly when Aunt Izzie spoke unkindly of her poor sick friend. She had tears in her eyes now as she walked to the gate, and looked so very sober, that Imogen Clark, who stood there waiting, clasped her hands and said:
“Ah, I see! Your aristocratic Aunt refuses.”
Imogen’s real name was Elizabeth. She was rather a pretty girl, with a screwed-up, sentimental mouth, shiny brown hair, and a little round curl on each of her cheeks. These curls must have been fastened on with glue or tin tacks, one would think, for they never moved, however much she laughed or shook her head. Imogen was a bright girl, naturally, but she had read so many novels that her brain was completely turned. It was partly this which made her so attractive to Katy, who adored stories, and thought Imogen was a real heroine of romance.
“Oh, no, she doesn’t,” she replied, hardly able to keep from laughing, at the idea of Aunt Izzie being called an “aristocratic relative” – “she says she shall be very hap–”. But here Katy’s conscience gave a prick, and the sentence ended in “um, um, um–” “So you’ll come, won’t you, darling? I am so glad!”
“And I!” said Imogen, turning up her eyes theatrically.
From this time on till the end of the week the children talked of nothing but Imogen’s visit, and the nice time they were going to have. Before breakfast on Saturday morning, Katy and Clover were at work building a beautiful bower of asparagus boughs under the trees. All the playthings were set out in order. Debby baked them some cinnamon cakes, the kitten had a pink ribbon tied round her neck, and the dolls, including “Pikery,” were arrayed in their best clothes.
About half-past ten Imogen arrived. She was dressed in a light-blue barège, with low neck and short sleeves, and wore coral beads in her hair, white satin slippers, and a pair of yellow gloves. The gloves and slippers were quite dirty, and the barège was old and darned; but the general effect was so very gorgeous, that the children, who were dressed for play, in gingham frocks and white aprons, were quite dazzled at the appearance of their guest.
“Oh, Imogen, you look just like a young lady in a story!” said simple Katy; whereupon Imogen tossed her head and rustled her skirts about more than ever.
Somehow, with these fine clothes, Imogen seemed to have put on a fine manner, quite different from the one she used every day. You know some people always do, when they go out visiting. You would almost have supposed that this was a different Imogen, who was kept in a box most of the time, and taken out for Sundays