Emma Dowd - Polly of Lady Gay Cottage

The telephone bell cut sharp into Polly’s story.

She was recounting one of the merry hours that Mrs. Jocelyn had given to her and Leonora, while Dr. Dudley and his wife were taking their wedding journey. Still dimpling with laughter, she ran across to the instrument; but as she turned back from the message her face was troubled.

“Father says I am to come right over to the hospital,” she told her mother. “Mr. Bean – you know, the one that married Aunt Jane – has got hurt, and he wants to see me. I hope he isn’t going to die. He was real good to me that time I was there, as good as he dared to be.”

“I will go with you,” Mrs. Dudley decided.

And, locking the house, they went out into the early evening darkness.

The physician was awaiting them in his office.

“Is he badly hurt?” asked Polly anxiously. “What does he want to see me for?”

“We are afraid of internal injury,” was the grave answer. “He was on his way to you when the car struck him.”

“To me?” Polly exclaimed.

“He was fetching a little box that belonged to your mother. Do you recollect it – a small rosewood box?”

“Oh, yes!” she cried. “I’d forgotten all about it – there’s a wreath of tiny pearl flowers on the cover!”

The Doctor nodded.

“Mr. Bean seems to attach great value to the box or its contents.”

“Oh, what is in it?”

“I don’t know. But he kept tight hold of it even after he was knocked down, and it was the first thing he called for when he regained consciousness. I thought he had better defer seeing you until to-morrow morning; but he wouldn’t hear to it. So I let him have his own way.”

“Have you sent word to Aunt Jane?” inquired Polly, instinctively shrinking from contact with the woman in whose power she had lived through those dreadful years.

Dr. Dudley gave a smiling negative. “He begged me not to let her know.”

“I don’t blame him!” Polly burst out. “I guess he’s glad to get away from her, if he did have to be hurt to do it.”

“Probably he wishes first to make sure that the box is in your hands,” observed the Doctor, rising. “She will have to be notified. Come, we will go upstairs. The sooner the matter is off Mr. Bean’s mind, the better.”

Polly was dismayed at sight of the little man’s face. In their whiteness his pinched features seemed more wizen than ever. But his smile of welcome was eager.

“How do you do, my dear? My dear!” the wiry hand was extended with evident pain.

Polly squeezed it sympathetically, and told him how sorry she was for his accident.

Mr. Bean gazed at her with tender, wistful eyes.

“My little girl was ’most as big as you,” he mused. “Not quite; she wasn’t but six when she – went. But you look consider’ble like her – wish’t I had a picture o’ Susie! I wish’t I had!” He drew his breath hard.

Polly patted the wrinkled hand, not knowing what to say.

“But I’ve got a picture here you’ll like,” the little man brightened. “Yer’ll like it first-rate.”

His hand moved gropingly underneath the bed covers, and finally brought out the little box that Polly instantly recognized.

“Oh, thank you! How pretty it is!” She received it with a radiant smile.

Mr. Bean’s face grew suddenly troubled.

“Yer mustn’t blame Jane too much,” he began pleadingly. “I guess she kind o’ dassent give it to yer, so long afterwards. It’s locked,” – as Polly pulled at the cover, – “and there ain’t no key,” he mourned. “I do’ know what Jane’s done with it. Yer’ll have to git another, – there wa’n’t no other way.” His voice was plaintive.

“That’s all right,” Polly reassured him.

The pleasure of once more holding the little box in her hand was enough for the moment.

“I see it in her bureau drawer the day we was first married,” he went on reminiscently, “an’ she opened it and showed me what was in it. Ther’ ’s a picture of yer mother – ”

“Oh!” Polly interrupted excitedly, “of mamma?”

“Yis, so she said. Looks like you, too, – same kind o’ eyes. It was goin’ to be for your birthday – that’s what she had it took for, Jane said.”

Polly had been breathlessly following his words, and now broke out in sudden reproach: —

“Oh! why didn’t Aunt Jane let me have it! How could she keep it, when I wanted a picture of mamma so!”

The reply did not come at once. A shadow of pain passed over the man’s face, leaving it more drawn and pallid.

“It’s too bad!” he lamented weakly. “I tol’ Jane so then; but she thought ’twould kind o’ upset yer, likely, and so – ” His voice faltered. He began again bravely. “You mustn’t blame Jane too much, my dear! Jane’s got some good streaks, real good streaks.”

Polly looked up from the little box. Her eyes were wet, but she smiled cheerfully into the anxious face.

“I ought not to blame her, now she’s sent it,” she said sweetly; “and I thank you ever so much for bringing it.”

A hint of a smile puckered the thin lips.

“Guess if I’d waited f’r her to send it,” he murmured, “’t ’ud been the mornin’ Gabriel come! But Jane’s got her good streaks,” he apologized musingly.

Then he lay silent for a moment, feeling after courage to go on.

“Ther’ ’s a letter, too,” he finally hazarded. “Jane said it was about some rich relations o’ yours some’er’s – I forgit where. She said likely they wouldn’t care nothin’ ’bout you, seein’ ’s they never’d known yer, and it would only put false notions into yer head, and so she didn’t” – he broke off, his eyes pleading forgiveness for the woman whose “good streaks” needed constant upholding.

But Polly was quite overlooking Aunt Jane. This astonishing bit of news had thrown her mind into a tumult, and she breathlessly awaited additional items.

They were slow in coming, and she grew impatient.

“What relatives are they?” she prodded. “Papa’s, or mamma’s?”

Mr. Bean could not positively say. He had not read the letter, and recollected little that his wife had told him.

“Seems kind o’ ’s if they was Mays,” he mused; “but I ain’t noways sure. Anyhow they was millionaires, Jane said she guessed, and she was afraid ’t ’ud spile yer to go and live with ’em, – ”

At this juncture Dr. Dudley interposed, his fingers trying his patient’s pulse.

“No more visiting to-night,” he smiled, yet the smile was grave and of short life.

Polly went away directly, carrying the little rosewood box, after again expressing her grateful thanks to Mr. Bean.

Down in the office her tongue ran wild, until her mother was quite as excited as she. But there was a difference; Polly’s wondering thoughts flew straight to her lips, Mrs. Dudley’s stayed in her heart, restless and fearsome.

Next morning the injured man seemed no worse, though the physicians still had grave doubts of his recovery. Dr. Dudley, while appreciating Mr. Bean’s kind intentions towards Polly, and putting out of account the serious accident, grimly wished to himself that the little man had suffered the rosewood box to remain hidden in his wife’s bureau drawer. Of course, Polly was legally his own, yet these unknown relatives of hers, – with what convincing arguments might they confront him, arguments which he could not honestly refute! Yet he carried the box to the locksmith’s, and he conjectured cheerfully with Polly regarding the contents of the letter.

Late in the afternoon he put both box and key into Polly’s hands.