Part 7 (1/2)

'What is she doing about it, and in what direction is she searching?'

'She is doing nothing, and she will do nothing; she has gone to a Theosophy lecture, and we are to find the twins; and she says it's your fault, anyway, and unless you prove more trustworthy the seraphs will be removed from your care; and you are not to send me again as a messenger, if you please, because I am an impudent, grovelling little earthworm!'

'Rhoda!'

'Yes'm!'

'Did she call you that?'

'Yes'm, and a jellyfish besides; in fact, she dragged me through the entire animal kingdom; but she is a stellar being--she said so.'

'What did you say to her to provoke that, Rhoda? She is thoroughly illogical and perverse, but she is very amiable.'

'Yes, when you don't interfere with her. You should catch her with her hair in waving-pins, just after she has imbibed apple-sauce! Oh, I can't remember exactly what I said, for I confess I was a trifle heated, and at the moment I thought only of freeing my mind. Let me see: I told her she neglected all the practical duties that stared her directly in the face, and squandered herself on useless fads and vagaries--that's about all. No-o, now that I come to think of it, I did say that the children would have been missed and found last night, if she had had a drop of mother's blood in her veins.'

'That's terse and strong--and tactful,' said Mary; 'anything more?'

'No, I don't think so. Oh yes! now that I reflect, I said I didn't believe she was a woman at all. That seemed to enrage her beyond anything, somehow; and when I explained it, and tried to modify it by saying I meant that she had never borne or loved or brooded anything in her life but her nasty little clubs, she was white with anger, and told me I was too low in the scale of being to understand her. Good gracious! I wish she understood herself half as well as I understand her!'

Mary gave a hysterical laugh. 'I can't pretend you didn't speak the truth, Rhoda, but I am sadly afraid it was ill advised to wound Mrs.

Grubb's vanity. Do you feel a good deal better?'

'No,' confessed Rhoda penitently. 'I did for fifteen minutes,--yes, nearly half an hour; but now I feel worse than ever.'

'That is one of the commonest symptoms of freeing one's mind,'

observed Mary quietly.

It was scarcely an hour later when Atlantic and Pacific were brought in by an officer, very dirty and dishevelled, but gay and irresponsible as larks, nonchalant, amiable, and unrepentant. As Rhoda had prophesied, there had been no difficulty in finding them; and as everybody had prophesied, once found there had not been a second's delay in delivery. Moved by fiery hatred of the police matron, who had ill.u.s.trated justice more than mercy, and ill.u.s.trated it with the back of a hair-brush on their reversed persons; lured also by two popcorn b.a.l.l.s, a jumping-jack, and a tin horse, they accepted the munic.i.p.al escort with alacrity; and nothing was ever jauntier than the manner in which Pacific, all smiles and mola.s.ses, held up her sticky lips for an expected salute--an unusual offer which was respectfully declined as a matter of discipline.

Mary longed for Rhoda's young minister in the next half-hour, which she devoted to private spiritual instruction. Psychology proved wholly unequal to the task of fathoming the twins, and she fancied that theology might have been more helpful. Their idea seemed to be- -if the rudimentary thing she unearthed from their consciousness could be called an idea--that they would not mind repenting if they could see anything of which to repent. Of sin, as sin, they had no apparent knowledge, either by sight, by hearsay or by actual acquaintance. They sat stolidly in their little chairs, eyes roving to the windows, the blackboard, the pictures; they clubbed together and fished a pin from a crack in the floor during one of Mary's most thrilling appeals; finally they appeared so bored by the whole proceeding that she felt a certain sense of embarra.s.sment in the midst of her despair. She took them home herself at noon, apologised to the injured Mrs. Grubb for Rhoda's unfortunate remarks, and told that lady, gently but firmly, that Lisa could not be moved until she was decidedly better.

'She was wandering about the streets searching for the twins from noon till long after dark, Mrs. Grubb--there can be no doubt of it; and she bears unmistakable signs of having suffered deeply. I have called in a physician, and we must all abide by his advice.'

'That's well enough for the present,' agreed Mrs. Grubb reluctantly, 'but I cannot continue to have my studies broken in upon by these excitements. I really cannot. I thought I had made an arrangement with Madame Goldmarker to relieve me, but she has just served me a most unladylike and deceitful trick, and the outcome of it will be that I shall have to send Lisa to the asylum. I can get her examined by the commissioners some time before Christmas, and if they decide she's imbecile they'll take her off my hands. I didn't want to part with her till the twins got older, but I've just found a possible home for them if I can endure their actions until New Year's. Our Army of Present Perfection isn't progressing as it ought to, and it's going to found a colony down in San Diego County, and advertise for children to bring up in the faith. A certain number of men and women have agreed to go and start the thing and I'm sure my sister, if she was alive would be glad to donate her children to such a splendid enterprise. If the commissioners won't take Lisa, she can go to Soul Haven, too--that's the name of the place;--but no, of course they wouldn't want any but bright children, that would grow up and spread the light.' (Mary smiled at the thought of the twins engaged in the occupation of spreading light.) 'I shall not join the community myself, though I believe it's a good thing; but a very different future is unveiling itself before me' (her tone was full of mystery here), 'and some time, if I can ever pursue my investigations in peace, you will knock at this door and I shall have vanished! But I shall know of your visit, and the very sound of your footfall will reach my ear, even if I am inhabiting some remote mountain fastness!'

When Lisa awoke that night, she heard the crackling of a wood fire on the hearth; she felt the touch of soft linen under her aching body, and the pressure of something cool and fragrant on her forehead. Her right hand, feebly groping the white counterpane, felt a flower in its grasp. Opening her eyes, she saw the firelight dancing on tinted walls, and an angel of deliverance sitting by her bedside--a dear familiar woman angel, whose fair crowned head rose from a cloud of white, and whose sweet downward gaze held all of benignant motherhood that G.o.d could put into woman's eyes.

Marm Lisa looked up dumbly and wonderingly at first, but the mind stirred, thought flowed in upon it, a wave of pain broke over her heart, and she remembered all; for remembrance, alas, is the price of reason.

'Lost! my twinnies, all lost and gone!' she whispered brokenly, with long, shuddering sobs between the words. 'I look--look--look; never, never find!'

'No, no, dear,' Mary answered, stroking the lines from her forehead, 'not lost any more; found, Lisa--do you understand? They are found, they are safe and well, and n.o.body blames you; and you are safe, too, your new self, your best self unharmed, thank G.o.d; so go to sleep, little sister, and dream happy dreams!'

Glad tears rushed from the poor child's eyes, tears of conscious happiness, and the burden rolled away from her heart now, as yesterday's whirring shuttles in her brain had been hushed into silence by her long sleep. She raised her swimming eyes to Mistress Mary's with a look of unspeakable trust. 'I love you! oh, I love, love, love you!' she whispered, and, holding the flower close to her breast, she breathed a sigh of sweet content, and sank again into quiet slumber.

CHAPTER XII--FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

It may be said in justice to Mrs. Grubb that she was more than usually hara.s.sed just at this time.