Читать книгу The Amazing Inheritance - Frances R. Sterrett - Страница 4

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Tessie had never crossed the threshold of Mr. Kingley's sacred office. She had never dreamed of crossing it, and she hung back when Mr. Bill threw open the door.

"Dad!" cried Mr. Bill, a trifle breathlessly. "Listen to this! You'll never believe it!"

There was an excitement in his voice which made his father, busy with Miss Norah Lee who was on the Evergreen publicity staff, look up from the sketches and copy they were studying. And when he saw his only son hand-in-hand with a pink-cheeked, big-eyed, bareheaded girl in a black sateen frock, he feared the worst.

"Bill!" he exclaimed harshly. He rose to his feet and glared at his only son. "How dare you?"

He changed his tone completely when he heard the story. His eyes fairly bulged as he stared at Queen Teresa who stood modestly beside Mr. Bill. For once in his life Mr. William Allison Kingley seemed at a complete loss for words. Nothing like this had ever happened before in the Evergreen, and so it was not surprising that Mr. Kingley, like Mr. Walker, was unprepared. It takes youth like Tessie's and Mr. Bill's to accept such stupendous events unquestioningly. Youth naturally believes in fairies, and if you really do believe in fairies, why—anything—everything—is possible.

"What a chance for some gorgeous publicity!" Norah Lee murmured. She had risen, too, and was staring at Tessie as if she had never seen a black-frocked salesgirl before, and as if she saw her now as so many columns of print on the front page of the Gazette.

An odd smile touched Mr. Kingley's mouth, and at once he was himself again. Like a well-known Queen of England, Mr. Kingley had a word engraved upon his heart—and that word was Evergreen. Mr. Kingley lived and breathed for the Evergreen. Every thought, word and deed was for the Evergreen, first and last. He went to bed at night that he might get up in the morning to work for the Evergreen. He passionately envied his son, because Mr. Bill was just beginning his career in the Evergreen, and so might naturally expect a long life of service to the big store. He admired his wife and daughter because they were clothed and nourished by the Evergreen. Just for a flash, perhaps for the only time in his life, when he saw his son and Tessie together, hand-in-hand, he had forgotten his idol; but Norah Lee's impulsive murmur pulled him down on his knees to it again.

"Of course. That's just what I was going to say!" He seemed irritated because Norah had already said it. "I heartily congratulate you, Miss Gilfooly—or should I say Queen Teresa?" He smiled benevolently at the queen as he took her hand and solemnly shook it. "You might send for the photographer, Miss Lee, and arrange to have some pictures taken of Miss Gilfooly at the aluminum—was it?—receiving the news of her—of her accession to the throne of the Sunshine Islands. It sounds quite like a romance, doesn't it? And you say you have heard nothing from your Uncle Pete—King Peter, I should say—for twenty-five years?" he asked, as Norah disappeared with a backward look of incredulous wonder at Tessie.

"No, sir." Tessie spoke softly. She had a pleasant voice, inherited from her Irish ancestors. It sounded exceedingly pleasant and musical to Mr. Kingley, and to Mr. Bill, too. "Not for twenty-five years. He ran away to sea when he was sixteen and my grandfather was awfully cross. He said he would come to no good end, but Granny said a man could make a living on the sea as well as on the land."

"And your grandmother was right!" Mr. Kingley seemed delighted that Tessie's grandmother had spoken true words. "A king! Bless me! It is romantic!" He sounded almost envious of Tessie's romance. "Do you know anything about these Sunshine Islands?" He seemed to thirst for details. "Bill, push forward that chair for Miss Gilfooly."

Tessie gave Mr. Bill a shy little smile as she sank into the big chair he pushed forward. Of all the unbelievable things which had happened, this was about the most unbelievable. Imagine sitting in Mr. Kingley's sacred office for a little chat with Mr. Kingley and Mr. Bill! Tessie's head whirled, but she managed to tell them in her soft, pleasant voice that she really knew very little about the Sunshine Islands, but that she would have to resign her position in the Evergreen, because she would have to go to her new kingdom. She spoke a little regretfully of leaving the Evergreen, and Mr. Kingley understood perfectly. He knew he would hate to leave the store even for a throne. Tessie was to see her lawyer at half-past five.

"After hours," she hastily told Mr. Kingley, so that he would know that she was not going to take advantage of her new honor and ask any favors.

"Faithful little thing," beamed Mr. Kingley. "You'll make a good queen. And you're going to the islands at once? Not alone, I hope?"

"My brother John will go with me. He's a Boy Scout!" It would have cheered Johnny's heart to have heard the pride in Tessie's voice.

"But you will need more support than a Boy Scout. The natives of those Pacific islands are cannibals!" Mr. Kingley was shocked to think that Tessie contemplated going to them without an army to aid her. "At least, I read somewhere once that they were cannibals," he said hurriedly when Mr. Bill looked at him in surprise because he did know something about the Pacific islands. He flushed slightly and seemed annoyed.

"Johnny's a good Boy Scout," insisted Tessie. "And Granny will go with us, of course. And the cannibals are reformed, Mr. Kingley. Uncle Pete didn't allow them to eat anybody!"

"I should hope not! Bless me! This is strange! I never expected anything like this to happen in the Evergreen. I suppose the newspapers will give us the front page for such a story. I wonder what the Bon Ton and the Mammoth will say! The world, as well as Waloo, will be interested." He was forgetting Tessie in his delight in the situation, for, as has been said, he was the owner of the Evergreen before he was any one else. "I don't suppose, Miss Gilfooly," he said slowly, as if he were following a train of thought which was dashing through his mind, "I don't suppose you would want to hold a little sale here some day soon, after the Gazette has published the story? Of aluminum, perhaps? I mean—" as his son gave a shocked exclamation, "Dad!"—"for one of the charities of the Sunshine Islands? It would help both of us. But that can be arranged later. I don't deny it would help the Evergreen as much as it would increase, say—the shoe fund of your new kingdom."

"If it would help you, Mr. Kingley, I'd be glad to do it," Tessie told him obligingly, and she glanced reprovingly at Mr. Bill, who snorted scornfully.

"Help me!" Mr. Kingley laughed and beamed at her with more satisfaction than he could put in words. "Why every woman in town would want to buy a piece of aluminum if a queen would sell it to her," he declared. "But we can talk of that later. We'll keep in touch with you—in close touch. And now, suppose you let Bill take you home or to your lawyer's?"

"I don't want to ask any favors," Tessie managed to stammer, although her heart began to thump unmanageably. Imagine Mr. Bill taking her home!

"It's a pleasure to grant them." Mr. Kingley rose to his feet again and bowed to her. "After you've had your picture taken, Bill will go with you to your lawyer's. Help her all you can, Bill," he told his son. "She was one of us, you know, one of the Evergreen family, and we must help her."

"I will," promised Mr. Bill. "I'll stay right with her. Come on, Your Majesty!" He grinned at Tessie. "It sounds like a joke," he said with the frankness of a member of the family.

Tessie raised her eyes and smiled at him. "It isn't a joke," she said slowly. "If it had been a joke, that native with the funny hair and the tattooed nose would never have given me this, would he?" And she opened her left hand which she had held tightly closed, and showed them a pearl as big as a marble. It was threaded on some sort of grass or vegetable fiber and caught in a network of the same lacelike filament.

"Bless me!" exclaimed Mr. Kingley, who had never seen a pearl as large as a marble before. He touched it with his fingers to make sure that he really saw one now. "Do you suppose it is real?"

"It's real!" nodded Tessie. "And it belongs to the King, or the Queen, of the Sunshine Islands. I couldn't be the queen if I didn't have it," she told him, and her eyes were big with wonder, that she was a queen at all.

Mr. Kingley stopped looking at the pearl to look at Tessie. "Imagine giving it to you without proper authority, papers, identification, you know!" It was most unbusinesslike to his businesslike mind. He could not imagine such a procedure. When he did business he had the papers very carefully drawn up before anything passed from hand to hand. Evidently that was not the way affairs were conducted in the Sunshine Islands. "Simple people, aren't they? It must be worth a great deal of money!" He eyed the pearl with the respect one gives to what is worth a great deal of money. It reminded him of something else. "Have you any idea, my dear—I mean, Miss Gilfooly," when Mr. Kingley felt as kindly toward Tessie as he did, it was hard to keep the more informal term from his lips, "what the value of your new kingdom is?"

"The lawyer said the islands were worth hundreds of thousands," Tessie murmured bashfully.

"Dollars?" gasped Mr. Kingley, his eyes bulging again.

"Pounds," corrected Tessie, unconsciously icing the cake she offered Mr. Kingley for inspection. "That's more than dollars, isn't it? I think that's pretty good," she added with innocent pride.

"Good!" He choked over the word. "Take care of her, Bill! Take good care of her," he urged. "My soul, but this is splendid and romantic! I was always interested in romance. I never could have built up the Evergreen as I have if I hadn't been romantic. To think of finding a queen in our basement! Take good care of her, Bill!"

"I will," Mr. Bill promised again. He was far more impressed by Tessie's big blue eyes and the enchanting color in her cheeks than he was by the number of pounds she had just received. Gee, but she was a queen all right! A peach of a queen! "Come on, Miss Gilfooly, and I'll take you home." He drew a quick breath as he discovered that he wanted to have her to himself. He did not want to share her even with his father, who was beaming so benevolently.

"After the picture is taken," reminded Mr. Kingley, faithful to his motto—"Business first." "After the picture is taken. And if there is anything you want in the store, Miss Gilfooly, anything in the way of frocks or furbelows," what he really had in mind was a coronation robe but he did not put the thought in words, "just help yourself. Your credit is good with us. I'll see you again, Queen Teresa." And he laughed and took her hand and shook it. "Perhaps you would like me to put your jewel in the safe?"

"I want to show it to Granny." Tessie closed her fingers over the pearl. "She'll be interested because Uncle Pete wore it. I'll take good care of it," she promised.

"Do!" he begged, and he bowed to her again as she went away with Mr. Bill. "My soul!" he declared, as he dropped back in his chair and stared around him at the familiar furnishings which just then did not seem so familiar. "This is going to be a big thing for the Evergreen! Where's Miss Lee? We must tell the world what was found in our basement!"

As Tessie and Mr. Bill left the office they met Joe Cary coming to the office. His hands were full of drawings to be submitted to the critical eye of Mr. Kingley, who refused to let so much as a sketch of a hook-and-eye appear in any paper without his august approval. Joe stopped and stared. What was Tessie Gilfooly doing up here on the office floor with Mr. Bill, when her place was in the basement? He sensed trouble of some sort and took his stand promptly and unquestioningly beside Tessie.

"What's up, Tess?" he demanded, without any preliminary remarks.

Tessie tore her admiring eyes from Mr. Bill and looked at Joe as he stood there, his hands full of sketches, an anxious expression on his face which was half hidden by the ugly green shade that protected his eyes. Above the shade his brown hair was rough and untidy. Mr. Bill's hair was black and of lacquer smoothness. Joe's coat was old and torn. There was a darn at the upper corner of the pocket. Mr. Bill was a sartorial dream—a joy to his tailor. The contrast between Joe and Mr. Bill was so marked that it was painful. Tessie blushed for Joe. But he was her old friend, and she wanted to tell him the news herself.

"Oh, Joe!" she cried. "What do you think? I'm a queen!"

Naturally Joe would not believe such an absurd statement until Tessie had told him about the lawyer and the native with the frizzled hair, and showed him the big pearl, and even then he looked as if he did not believe it.

"It's a joke!" He glared at Mr. Bill as if he suspected that Mr. Bill were responsible for the joke, which he considered was in very bad taste.

"You remember Uncle Pete?" Tessie went on eagerly. "You've heard Granny talk about Uncle Pete?"

"She said he was lost at sea!" nodded Joe, wondering what connection there could be between Granny's vagabond son and this ridiculous statement that Tessie was a queen.

"And all the time she thought he was lost at sea, he was King of these Sunshine Islands! Can you believe it?" Tessie drew a long breath, for she could not believe it. She looked with shining eyes from the godlike Mr. Bill to the worn Joe Cary.

"No, I can't!" Joe said bluntly. "I can't believe a word of it. What do you mean about a lawyer? Wait a minute, Tessie, and I'll go with you."

"Mr. Bill is going with me," Tessie told him quickly and proudly.

Joe looked at Mr. Bill as if he were measuring him body and soul. He might not approve of the result, but he found nothing to which he had the right to object.

"Of course if you would rather have him," he said, and he turned away with his sketches.

Even if he did take her to but one movie in two weeks he was her old friend, and Tessie would not hurt him for the world. She caught his sleeve.

"He offered first," she said, still a bit overcome with the wonder that Mr. Bill had offered at all. "And his father told him to go with me. And he can go without being docked," she explained in a whisper which reached Mr. Bill's ears even if it was low. "You don't want to be docked, Joe."

"I'd rather be docked than have you get into trouble," Joe declared in anything but a whisper. "But it's all right, Tessie. Mr. Bill can look after you and perhaps he does know more about kings and queens than I do. I don't believe in such things, you know."

"I know!" But Tessie drew a long breath which told Joe that she believed in kings and queens. Indeed, she did believe in them!

"What do you mean, Cary?" demanded Mr. Bill. "Don't you believe Miss Gilfooly?"

"Oh, I believe Tessie all right. Tessie knows what I think of her. But I don't believe in kings or queens. The world doesn't need that kind of thing any more. You can see how it's getting rid of them—Russia and Austria and Germany. It may be all right," he admitted slowly, "if Tessie likes it, but personally I don't see how she can. Royalty is as old-fashioned as hoopskirts and belongs to the same period," he finished scornfully.

"You're an anarchist!" Mr. Bill was shocked, and he moved closer to Tessie as if to protect her.

"I'm a progressive!" Joe contradicted him flatly. "I move with the world, and I don't try to hold it back. But that doesn't mean I can't congratulate Tessie because she has a plaything that will amuse her until she outgrows it, although when I come to think of it, the Sunshine Islands sounds a lot like cannibals——"

"Cannibals!" Tessie was indignant. "Uncle Pete wouldn't be king of any cannibals!" The idea! How dared Joe Cary think Uncle Pete would?

"If you'll pardon me, Miss Gilfooly," broke in Mr. Bill, who disliked the tone of the conversation, and who had no patience with Joe Cary's outrageous ideas—pure envy, pure unadulterated envy, he knew was responsible for them—"we were on our way to your lawyer's when we met your friend."

"Oh, yes!" Tessie turned to him eagerly. His voice thrilled her and made her forget to be indignant at Joe. "But first we are going to the basement to be photographed, you know."

"Basement! Photographed!" exclaimed Joe, who could not find head nor tail to this amazing story of Tessie's.

"For publicity for the Evergreen!" Tessie was pinkly important. "Mr. Kingley suggested it, and I'm glad to do anything I can to help the store."

Tessie spoke with some emphasis, and she smiled radiantly. It was so thrilling to feel that she could help the Evergreen which had been so patronizing to her, although she was far too tender-hearted to have formulated that thought. She only knew that it was mighty pleasant to do something for the store. Tessie did not have an analytical mind. She took things as they came to her and did not stop to question why they came.

Joe whistled softly. "Publicity," he repeated. "Ye gods and little fishes! Publicity! The Evergreen must be served, eh? Ye gods! Run along, Tess," as she stared at him, "and have your picture taken. I expect it will make mighty good publicity for Mr. Kingley!" And he laughed in a way that puzzled Tessie and made her look at him in dismay. What on earth was the matter with Joe Cary?