Читать книгу The Amazing Inheritance - Frances R. Sterrett - Страница 3

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Tessie Gilfooly was a queen.

A queen! Just imagine! It was far more unbelievable to Tessie than it can possibly be to you. She stared at the man who had brought her the amazing news. A queen!

A minute before and Tessie had been only a big-eyed, dreamy salesgirl in the hardware department of Waloo's largest department store, the Evergreen. Mr. Walker, the long, thin head of the department, had just reprimanded her severely because she had given a customer an aluminum saucepan when the customer had asked for an aluminum frying-pan.

"You must pay more attention to what customers ask for, Miss Gilfooly," scowled Mr. Walker.

"She asked for a saucepan," insisted Tessie stubbornly. Tessie was tired of being blamed for the mistakes of other people.

"Well, she wanted a frying-pan," Mr. Walker said, and his tone was short and crisp, like the best pastry. "In the Evergreen, Miss Gilfooly, a customer is to get what she wants. And the customer is always right! We have to make that rule so we'll keep our customers. Don't let this happen again!"

As he walked away two big tears gathered in Miss Gilfooly's blue eyes. The injustice of the world and especially of long, thin Mr. Walker, who would stand by an unreasonable customer instead of by a tired salesgirl, made her sick.

And now she was a queen!

It does sound unbelievable. But after all you need not lift your black or your brown or your yellow eyebrows and say it is impossible. Far more impossible stories appear in your newspaper every day. Just this morning there was a tale of a set of china, one hundred and ten pieces, which was stolen from a residence on the River Drive and carried across the Mississippi River into Wisconsin and returned to its owner without one of the hundred and ten pieces being broken or even nicked. To prove this surprising story there were statements from Mrs. Joshua Cabot, who had been robbed, and from Stuttering Jimmie, the robber, who had showed that he was a quick and expert packer. Without the statement of Mrs. Joshua Cabot, easily the leader of the Waloo younger matrons, you never would have believed the tale, but no one could question the word of young Mrs. Joshua Cabot. Whoever made the phrase that truth is stranger than fiction knew exactly what he was talking about for nothing could have been stranger than for a burglar to steal a full set of Wedgewood china or for Tessie Gilfooly to find herself a queen with a real kingdom and some thousands of real subjects.

Only that morning Tessie had grumbled and twisted her face into a most unbecoming scowl because life for her was just a dreary, weary round of work. She found fault with her oatmeal and skim milk because they were not strawberries and thick yellow cream and was just as annoying and disagreeable as a discontented girl of nineteen could possibly be.

"I never have any fun!" she wailed, and her small brother Johnny, who was eating his oatmeal and skim milk as if they were strawberries and cream, looked at her in surprise. What was the matter with old Tessie this morning, anyway? "I never have anything!" went on Tessie passionately. "It isn't fair for some girls to have so much and for me to have nothing at all! Look at Ethel Kingley!" she told Granny fiercely, although she must have known that Granny's eyes, keen as they were, could never penetrate the hundreds of frame and brick and stucco houses which separated the shabby little Gilfooly cottage from the big brick and stucco mansion which housed the Kingleys. "Ethel Kingley has everything in the world, and I haven't anything at all! It isn't fair! It isn't fair! Ethel Kingley's shoes cost more than I earn in a week. She has a new dress every day and I've worn this cheap sateen rag all spring! Ethel Kingley goes to bridge parties and dances! You can read about them in the Gazette! And I only go to bed! Ethel Kingley's brother—" The color rushed into her pale face as she spoke of the lordly Bill Kingley, "is the most wonderful man!" Words failed her as she thought of Ethel Kingley's wonderful brother.

"I'm a Boy Scout!" interrupted Johnny, eager to remind her that her own brother, young as he was, was wonderful too.

Tessie sniffed at him and at all Boy Scouts and went on with her grievances. When a quart measure is full it must overflow if anything more is poured into it, and Tessie was just full of grievances. "And Ethel Kingley has heaps of men friends to take her out and give her a good time!"

"You've got Joe," reminded Granny. "A face is a better guide to what a man is than clothes, Tessie Gilfooly! You take my word for it. Joe Cary is one in a thousand. His money's ready the minute it's due, every Saturday night as regular as the clock." For Joe had occupied the front room of the shabby little cottage ever since he had returned from France. "Now look here, my girl!" She regarded Tessie over her spectacles with kind but firm eyes. "It's plain to be seen that you got out of the wrong side of bed this morning. You're old enough to know that there are two kinds of folks in the world, those who have and those who haven't. The good Lord thought best to put you in with the 'haven'ts' and if he didn't give you the brains to climb up to the 'haves' there isn't any use in complaining and fault-finding to me. Here you are, young and healthy and with a nice job at the Evergreen——"

"Selling aluminum!" interrupted Tessie passionately.

"Selling aluminum," Granny repeated firmly. "You know very well that you're a lucky girl to have me and Johnny to look after you and Joe Cary for a friend to take you to the movies and——"

"One movie in two weeks!" exclaimed Tessie indignantly.

"And one more than you deserve when you act like this! You've done enough complaining for one morning, my girl. And if you don't want to be late and have your pay docked you'll take that frown off your face and put on a smile with your hat and run along. And I'll have some nice liver and onions for dinner so you'll have something pleasant to look forward to all day."

A glance at the old clock ticking so patiently on the shelf proved to Tessie that Granny told the truth. She pushed back her chair and rose to her feet, a pathetic, shabby little person with her white face in which the purple shadows made her eyes look big and purple-blue. Her yellow hair was bunched over her ears in the ugly fashion of the day and was really responsible for her tirade, for it had proved unmanageable that morning and almost refused to bunch itself over her little ears. And you know how irritating it is when your hair is unmanageable.

"Granny," she began, and her lip quivered. She was an honest little soul, and she could not go away and leave Granny without some word of apology. "It isn't because I don't appreciate you and all you do for me but it's—it's—" She stopped and looked at Granny with eyes drowned in tears.

"I know," exclaimed Granny comfortingly, and she slipped her arm around the slim figure. "I know! I don't blame you a mite! It isn't fair for good little things like you to have to go without fun and pretties. Every girl has a right to be a queen for a while, and it's remembering the days when she was queening it that help to make the other days bearable. Yes, my lamb, old Granny understands, and she don't blame you a mite. But just you wait! The good Lord'll get around to the Gilfoolys some day, and then see what you'll get. You're a good little girl if you ain't that wonderful Miss Kingley!" And she hugged the good little girl and sent her away. "No, it ain't fair," she repeated as she waved her hand from the door.

"What ain't fair?" asked Johnny, who was eating Tessie's discarded oatmeal and skim milk.

"Life," Granny told him thoughtfully. "Life never seems fair to young eyes, Johnny. It's only when you're old and wear glasses that you can see maybe it isn't as bad as you thought it was."

Life seemed anything but fair to Tessie as she stood among the aluminum, smarting at the unjustness of Mr. Walker and with her eyes filled with tears. Before the tears fell on her cheeks she heard a man behind her black sateen back ask doubtfully:

"I beg your pardon, but can you tell me where I'll find Miss Teresa Gilfooly?"

Tessie flirted her hand across her eyes and swung around to stare into the smiling face of a very good-looking young man. She stopped thinking that the world was unjust and discovered that it was showing a kindly partiality to one Teresa Gilfooly when such a good-looking young man was asking for her. What could he want? The only way to hear was to ask.

"I'm Tessie Gilfooly," she said shyly and pinkly, and when Tessie was pink and shy she was adorable.

The good-looking young man seemed surprised and pleased. Perhaps he had thought that big fat Mrs. Slawson was Teresa Gilfooly. "No!" he said, as if he could not believe that she was slim little Tessie. "I've some good news for you!" And he smiled radiantly. There was some fun in carrying good news to a pretty girl. And such good news! He gave it to her all in one piece. He did not believe in breaking the good news into small portions. "You're a queen!" he exclaimed. "Queen Teresa of the Sunshine Islands!" And he grinned. It made a pleasant break in the day's work to tell a big-eyed girl that she was a queen. It turned law into melodrama—very nice melodrama.

"What—what!" stammered Tessie. She put her hand on the table behind her for support, and she looked at the messenger suspiciously. Was he making fun of her? She had studied geography, but she had never heard of any Sunshine Islands. Have you? No wonder Tessie looked at Gilbert Douglas with suspicion.

But there was no fun in Bert's face. There was pleasure and importance and satisfaction and possibly just a wee bit of envy, but there was not a bit of fun as he went on to explain that the death of Tessie's Uncle Pete had removed her from the ranks of the proletariat and elevated her to a throne. Her Uncle Pete had run away to sea when he was sixteen years old. For several years letters came to Granny with strange stamps on the upper right-hand corner of the envelopes and then communication ceased. For twenty-five years there had been no word from Uncle Pete. And he had been King of the Sunshine Islands! Now he had died and left his kingdom to the eldest child of his only brother, John Gilfooly. The oldest child of John Gilfooly was Tessie Gilfooly. A queen! With a throne and a crown and everything! Tessie's brain reeled. She felt faint.

"You come over to the office—Marvin, Phelps and Stokes," suggested Bert, who had come from the office of Marvin, Phelps and Stokes to carry the good news to Tessie and who had never had an errand he liked any better. "Mr. Marvin will tell you all about it."

"Oh, I couldn't come now," faltered Tessie, pinching herself to make sure that she was in the hardware department of the Evergreen and not dreaming in her bed. "I don't get away until half-past five."

"I guess you could get away all right," laughed Bert. But when Tessie shook her yellow head and solemnly assured him that Mr. Walker was awfully strict and never let the girls go a minute before half-past five he laughed again and said all right. He would tell Mr. Marvin that she would be over at half-past five. "Queen Teresa," he said in a voice quite full of admiration and approval, as he went away.

For some time Tessie had been conscious that Mr. Walker had been casting disapproving glances in her direction. Tessie knew—all the girls in the Evergreen had been told—that they were not to talk to their gentlemen friends during working hours. Before nine and after half-past five they could do as they pleased, but from nine until half-past five they could only talk to customers. And this man with Tessie Gilfooly had not bought so much as a dish mop. He had not even asked to see any aluminum. Mr. Walker knew. It was outrageous!

But before he could swoop down on Tessie and tell her just how outrageous it was another man approached the table on which aluminum saucepans were so attractively arranged and behind which Tessie was standing with a white face and big, unbelieving eyes. If she let go of the table Tessie knew she would fall right to the floor.

This newcomer was as strange a figure as Mr. Walker had ever seen in the basement of the Evergreen. He was short and fat and with a skin that was not brown nor yellow nor red, but an odd blending of the three colors. He wore a loose blue denim blouse and trousers which flapped about his bare feet. But it was his head which made Mr. Walker's eyes bulge, for only in the pages of the National Geographic Magazine, which he looked at every month in the employees' rest-room, had Mr. Walker ever seen such a head. The coarse black hair was frizzed and stiffened until it stuck straight out from the scalp and was adorned with shells. The man's nose was tattooed in red and blue and a string of shells hung around his neck. Altogether he was the strangest figure Mr. Walker had ever seen in the department, and he wondered what on earth he would buy. He looked like a foreigner of some sort. Mr. Walker was taking a course in business psychology in the Evergreen night school, and he saw the advantage of the study now as he quickly labeled the stranger a native of some foreign country.

The native walked up to Tessie and raised his hand authoritatively. "Miss Teresa Gilfooly?" he said in a lisping voice and with a strange intonation which made Tessie step back and stare at him.

She nodded. She simply could not speak.

"Queen Teresa!" murmured the native rapturously. He fell on his knees before Tessie and pressed the hem of her short skirt to his forehead. "Queen Teresa!" he boomed, and his head touched the floor beside Tessie's shabby little pumps.

If Tessie was startled you can imagine Mr. Walker's surprise. He started forward with righteous indignation. He would not have such goings-on in his department. Not for a minute! But he had to stop and adjust a matter with a customer, and when at last he reached Tessie the native was humbly backing away from her into the elevator, and Tessie was staring after him with a strange look on her face.

"Come, come, Miss Gilfooly!" snapped Mr. Walker. "I can't have this! You can't have your gentlemen friends down here! I can't have men falling on their knees before the clerks in my department!"

"What's up, Walker?"

And there stood the hero of Tessie's dreams, young Mr. Bill, the only son of old Mr. William Kingley, the owner of the Evergreen. Mr. Bill was learning the business from the ground up and so was in the basement as a floorwalker. Tessie had never seen a man like Mr. Bill, not even on the moving-picture screen. She lived in the hope that some day he would speak to her, would stop and ask, perhaps, how sales were; but never once had Mr. Bill so much as said good morning or good evening to her. He had never seemed to see her. And now he was looking—actually looking—at her! and asking Mr. Walker what was up. It was plain to everyone in the basement that something was up.

Mr. Bill looked inquiringly from Mr. Walker to Tessie. Mr. Walker's face was all frowning disapproval, while Tessie's face was all flushed with unbelieving wonder. Of the two, Tessie's face was by far the more attractive. Mr. Bill looked at it again.

"Miss Gilfooly, Mr. Bill," began Mr. Walker, sure of his ground, "was breaking the rules. One of her gentlemen friends was on his knees to her not five minutes ago in this very department, beside the aluminum there!" And he pointed out the exact spot to Mr. Bill.

"He said I was a queen," faltered Tessie, eager to explain why the store rule had been shattered. She could not believe the amazing statement and so she did not speak firmly, as a queen should speak. She dared to raise her eyes to the godlike Mr. Bill—at least to Tessie Mr. Bill was godlike.

"And he was right!" declared Mr. Bill impulsively. Gee! what big blue eyes the girl had! He had never seen such eyes in the face of any girl, and he had seen many, many girls. He had never really looked at Tessie until now. She had been only one of the hundreds of black-gowned figures which filed into the Evergreen every morning, and filed out of the Evergreen every night. But now that his attention was focused on Tessie, he had to see how big and blue her eyes were, how fine her white skin was, how yellow her hair, and how slim and well poised her little body! Really, her gentleman friend was right, he thought. She was a queen. He grinned, although such a shattering of a cherished and important rule should have been met with a black frown.

"Mr. Bill!" Mr. Walker was shocked. That was no way to reprove a law-breaking employee.

"I don't mean that kind of a queen," murmured Tessie, tremulously conscious to her very toes at having Mr. Bill agree that she was a queen. "But a real queen—of the Sunshine Islands, you know! In the Pacific Ocean," she added hurriedly, for Mr. Bill had looked at Mr. Walker with a significance and a regret which were as plain as print. And she hurriedly told them of Uncle Pete who, unknown to his family, had reigned over the Sunshine Islands for almost twenty years.

"Well, I'll be darned!" exclaimed Mr. Bill. There was astonishment, amazement in his voice which made all the customers and all the salesgirls who heard it turn in his direction, and feel sorry for little Tessie Gilfooly. It sounded as if Mr. Bill just would not believe the yellow-haired salesgirl could have committed the awful deed which had been discovered.

"Upon my word!" stuttered Mr. Walker more elegantly. He did not know how to treat this situation. There was not a word in all the Evergreen rules on how to reprimand an employee if she neglected her work when she was told that she was a queen. Mr. Walker tugged at his mustache and stared stupidly at the culprit.

"Well, I'll be darned!" cried Mr. Bill again, and he too, stared at blushing Queen Teresa.

Tessie nodded. "That's the way I felt," she confessed, and again two big tears gathered in her eyes. Tessie, like long, thin Mr. Walker, felt quite unequal to the situation.

It was Mr. Bill who took command and showed that he was a true son of the Evergreen chief. "Come," he said quickly. "We must go and tell father. Can you believe it? Imagine finding a queen down here in the basement of the Evergreen! Come along!" And he took Tessie's hand and led her to the elevator.

Tessie almost swooned. But faint and excited as she was she clung to Mr. Bill's strong right hand.

"Oh, the poor girl!" murmured the customers, who watched them. "I suppose she has been impudent or stealing or something. What will they do to her? Did you say these stewpans were fifty-nine cents?"