CHAPTER IV
SIDNEY DIGS FOR COUSINS
The Romley house stood two stories and a half high, heavy-beamed,thick-walled, of square spacious rooms with deep-set windows andcavernous fireplaces under low marble mantels. Joseph Romley had chosenit because he said it was so big a man could think in it; he liked theseclusion, too, that the surrounding wall promised. If his wifefaltered before the care it presented she had given no sign but hadbravely spread their limited possessions through some of the rooms andhad sensibly closed off others.
There had never been a time since the Romleys took possession when thehouse had not needed painting and shingling, when the guarding wall wasnot crumbling and the gate swinging on one hinge, when the furnace wasnot needing cleaning and the plumbing overhauling. But the wind sangcheerily down the great chimneys and the sun poured in through thewindows and the ancient elms housed hosts of birds and the hollyhocksbloomed early and late against the wall so that Joseph Romley knew onlythe beauty of the place and was content and his family, perforce, wascontent because he was.
There had never been enough of the fine old furniture Mrs. Romley hadcollected in her bridehood to furnish a separate room for each one ofthe girls. Isolde and Trude had always shared a sunny room over thestudy. In a back room Victoria and Sidney still used the narrow beds ofnursery days. Only lately Victoria had painted them gray with a trim ofpink rose buds but the effect had suffered so sharply from Sidney's"truck" that Sidney had been coerced into taking her preciousbelongings to the attic where she established a kingdom of her own.
It was a beautiful attic. Its rafters, shiny and brown, were so lowthat Sidney, by standing very straight, could touch them with the topof her head. It had mysterious crannies and shadowy corners and deepdusty holes. Sidney had walled off one end by piling one trunk uponanother and pushing an old wardrobe next to them. There she had herpossessions, a flat-topped desk with long wobbly legs which she reachedby a box balanced on an old stool, the skeleton of a sofa on which satfive dusty and neglected dolls, a scrap of carpeting, amazing as to redroses but sadly frayed about its edges, one boastful rocker in completepossession of arms and legs, which Trude had smuggled up to her, and aconglomeration of her favorite books scattered everywhere, for in theseclusion of the attic she could pore over them without risk of someLady Leaguer discovering her love of them.
To this sanctuary Sidney retreated now from Vick and the Leaguers andher luckless lot. Swinging open the door of the wardrobe so as to shutoff any unannounced approach to her den, she tiptoed to a corner, kneltdown and cautiously lifted a board from the floor, thereby revealing aspace two feet square between the beams.
From among the treasures concealed there she drew out an old ledger onthe first page of which was printed in large type: "Dorothea, friendand confidante of Sidney Romley." Jerking herself closer to the windowshe opened the book across her knees and began to write in it with thestub of a pencil she extracted from the pocket of her middy blouse.
"Dearest Dorothea:
"Today I stand at a crossroad of life. I am fifteen. It is not my birthday for I had my birthday as you will see if you turn back to page 64 but I am fifteen today in the eyes of the world for I have come into my legal and just rights. I am to have the next Egg. I had to make a scene before I got them to promise I could have it but it was ever thus with rights. I swear solemnly now to you, dear Dorothea, that I shall never cry again in front of Victoria Romley. Never. I hate her when she laughs. I do not hate Isolde even though she does not understand me and that is hard. And I adore Trude as I have told you on many other pages. However, I am to have the Egg.
"But that is not all that happened this morning. I have talked to the most beautiful girl I ever saw. Her name is Pola and she goes to Grace Hall, which is a boarding school for very rich girls who have horses. Her father makes candy in a big factory and it is sold all over the world. When I get the Egg I shall buy a great deal of Betty Sweets. That is it. Pola has traveled so much that it bores her to think of it. When she talked she lifted a curtain and let me peep into a wonderful world. I think she liked me. She's going to put me in a theme only she is going to make me like Isolde who just to be mean made me receive the Leaguers this morning and went upstairs and did things as though it was not Saturday at all. But for that I must love her just as if she had not done it to be mean for I would not have met Pola. Pola--is that not the most romantic name you ever heard?--feels sorry for me because my father was a poet and she knew right off how I hate having the Leaguers own us and the house. She was wonderful. I shall never see anyone like her again. My life is doomed to be sad and lonely.
"But though I never see Pola again I shall try to live to be like her. Inside of me, of course. It would be no use to try to be like her outside on account of my horrid hair. Pola's hair is curly and short and she wears it caught with a 'bonny bright ribbon.' My eyes are plain blue and hers are a mysterious gray like an evening sky. Her skin is like creamy satin touched with rose petals and I think it is natural for it is not a bit like Josie Walker's who uses rouge for Nancy caught her putting it on one day at school in the toilet. Pola is as brave as she is beautiful. She dares anything. She would despise me if she knew that I just let my fate close over my head and do nothing.
"But now that I am fifteen before the world I must take my life in my hands. As adventure will never come to this house on account of the League I must go forth to meet adventure. I will not let the others know what I am planning for, as I said heretofore, Isolde does not understand me and Victoria would only laugh. And as I said heretofore, I hate her when she laughs. But, Victoria Romley, remember the words of the prophet: 'He who laughs last laughs loudest.'
"In case I pass to the Great Beyond and strange eyes read these confidences, let me add that I only hate Vicky when she laughs. At all other times I love her dearly. She is so beautiful that sometimes when I look at her I feel all queer and gaspy inside. Pola is not quite as beautiful as Vic but Pola is a girl like me.
"Dear Dorothea, friend of my inner spirit, as I close this page who knows what the future holds for me? I shall probably be very busy with my plans and may neglect you, my comforter, but as I go forth on my quest I shall often think of you, waiting, faithful, in my secret cranny. And I shall think of Isolde and Trude for I gleaned from something Isolde said to me this morning when she was mad that she and Trude long to escape from the League the way I do. But they think they have to stay here the rest of their lives. Mayhap I can bring escape to them. Vick will marry of course, but Isolde's beaux look too poor to get married and they are mostly poets as I have told you. And Trude has only her one Lost Love. Dear Dorothea, farewell. 'Mid pleasures and palaces though I may roam, my heart will come to thee in thy deep and secret chamber.'"
Sidney liked the last line so well that she paused to read it over,aloud.
She closed the book simply because her thoughts were racing ahead sofast that to write them became a torture. She restored "Dorothea"rather carelessly to her "deep and secret chamber." Having secured theloose planking she rose and turned her agile mind to the considerationof a desire that had began shaping when Trude said she could go aroundthe world with the Egg. Of course the Egg would not take her that farbut if it would only just take her somewhere on a train she'd besatisfied.
Travel in the Romley family had always been limited. One shabby bag haddone comfortable duty for them all. Joseph Romley had never wanted togo away; if the girls' mother ever yearned for other horizons she hadhidden it behind a smiling contentment. Neither Isolde nor Trude hadgone further than fifty miles from Middletown until the two trustees,after their father's death, had summoned them to New York. Victoria,seemingly born to more fortune than the others, had been whisked awayon several trips with Godmother Jocelyn, traveling luxuriously in astateroom with a maid but she had returned from even the most prolongedof these so silent and dispirit
ed that Sidney suspected traveling withGodmother Jocelyn, fat and fussy, was not the unalloyed pleasure Vickwould have them believe.
To how much Sidney longed to vision the world that lay beyond the levelhorizons of Middletown an old map of the United States and Canada,tacked to one of the rafters, attested. Upon this Sidney had markedwith various signs that meant much to her and nothing to any one else,the different localities of which she read in books or newspapers. Whena Leaguer introduced some devotee from some far-off city Sidneypromptly noted the visit on the map. In consequence she had a vicariousacquaintance scattered from coast to coast. It was the only way she hadever expected to "know" the world until Trude had said that about theEgg.
She did not count as "traveling" going once to Cascade Lake, twentymiles to the South, and spending a week there with Nancy. They had notgone on a train; they had driven down with Nancy's father in theautomobile. Though in anticipation the visit had appeared like anadventure, in later retrospection it was stupid. It had been just likebeing at Nancy's house in Middletown; Nancy's father and mother andSnap, the dog, and Caroline, the colored cook, and much of thefurniture were all there. It had rained all week and they had had toplay in the house and Nancy had had a cold in her head which had madeher cross and horrid-looking. No, that had not been "going" somewhere,the way Trude went to New York and Isolde to Chicago.
Crouched low in the sound rocker Sidney stared at the old map withspeculative eyes. One could not, when one was the youngest sister,simply pack the old bag and start off for just anywhere. All the tripsshe knew anything about had some objective; one went somewhere to seesomebody. Trude went to see Aunt Edith White, Isolde the Deerings. Vickalways went somewhere with Godmother Jocelyn. Plainly her first stepwas to find someone who lived somewhere where she could want to go.
It was a pity, Sidney lamented voicelessly, that her father had shunnedall their relatives the way he had the autograph seekers. Nancy had agreat many; she was always going to reunions at some aunt's or cousin'sor her mother was having a big "family" dinner. It would help her nowto have a few cousins herself. They surely must have some somewhere.Everyone did. That her father had snubbed them would not make them anythe less related.
She suddenly remembered a book she had found once in a box consigned tothe attic in that first settling. The book for a while had fascinatedher and Nancy, then they had thrown it aside for something more novel,little dreaming that it was destined to hold an important part in theshaping of Sidney's fortunes--and misfortunes. It was a very slenderlittle volume with an embellished binding, long since yellow with dust.
Finding it now Sidney drew the sleeve of her blouse across its coverand opened it. Its first page was given over to a curious tree from thesprawling branches of which hung round things much like grapefruits,each ring encircling one or two names. From each fruit dangled morefruit until the tree was quite overladen. A line at the bottomexplained that the curious growth was the Tree of the New England EllisFamily.
At that first inspection Sidney had felt no particular sense ofbelonging herself to the suspended grapefruits; the only thought thathad held her was how many, many years it had taken all those people tolive and what a little minute to read their names. But finding an "AnnEllis" in a corner of the tree had brought them suddenly close to her."Ann Ellis Green"--why, that was her mother's name. She and Nancyfigured out at once that these were her mother's ancestors--_her_ancestors. Nancy had supplied the word. Nancy had been deeply impressedby the Tree and the Coat-of-Arms which had come down to these Ellisesfrom a Welsh baron of feudal times. She had urged Sidney to use it onher school papers.
But neither the Coat-of-Arms nor the Tree held any especial value toSidney, brought up as she had been in a state of family isolation,until this moment.
Now the little book offered the reasonable possibility that eachancestor recorded therein had had children, just as that Ann Ellis inthe round enclosure had had her mother and her mother in turn had hadIsolde and Trude and Vick and herself. These children would becousins--and cousins were what she needed!
She remembered certain notations that had been made in a fine script onback pages of the book. In search of cousins she now scanned thesecarefully, with a shivery feeling of prowling over dead bones--thewriting was so queer and faded, the paper crackled and smelled so old.
"Charles Ellis, son of James by Mary Martin, second wife. Served in the102nd Regiment at Gettysburg. Awarded the Congressional Medal forexceptional bravery under fire."
"Priscilla Ellis gave her life in the service of nursing through theepidemic of small-pox that swept Boston in the year of 18--" Sidneyread this twice with a thrill. That was adventure for you. Small-pox.She wondered if Priscilla had been beautiful like Victoria and whethershe had left a sweetheart to mourn her tragic death to the end of hisdays. She liked to think Priscilla had had such.
That one Abner Ellis had been a Selectman for ten years did notinterest her--she passed him for the next entry.
"Ann Ellis married Jonathan Green, June 10, 1874. To this happy unionhas been born one precious daughter, our little Ann." Why, this "littleAnn" was her own mother, of course. And the Jonathan Green who was herfather had written in the book the little notes about all the Ellisesso that when the "Little Ann" grew up she would know all about them andbe proud--Priscilla who had died of small-pox and the ancestor with theCongressional Medal. Sidney suddenly thought it strange that her motherhad cared so little for the family tree that she had left it, dusty andforgotten, in the attic. Probably that was because her mother had beentoo busy being a poet's wife to bother about dead and gone Ellises.
She felt a little rush of tender remorse toward Jonathan Green--shewished he had not died when her mother was a little girl. He was herown grandfather. And _he_ had had a tree behind _him_--there haddoubtless been as many Greens as Ellises. She wished she knew what_they_ had been like. And almost in answer to the thought her eyes fellupon an entry on another page, made in Jonathan Green's fine hand.
"On this day, October 6, 1869, my brother, Ezekiel Green, sailed fromProvincetown for far shores on his good ship the _Betsy King_ whichsame has come into his possession as a reward for years of thrift andperseverance. God's blessing go with him--"
There were more entries concerning the brother, Ezekiel. He and hisgood ship the _Betsy King_ were reported as returning safely from theAzores, and again they had rounded Cape Horn, again had ventured toEast Indian waters.
"Oh-h!" cried Sidney aloud for at the top of another page she read thatthe _Betsy King_ had foundered off the Cape in the storm of '72--withall lives. "May the soul of my beloved brother, Ezekiel Green, rest inpeace with his Maker."
Sidney forgot the Burton-Ellis tree in her breathless interest in thefate of Ezekiel Green who had "foundered" and then rested in peace. Itwas like a story of marvellous adventure. Her grandfather had evidentlythought a great deal of this brother who had sailed the oceans wide. Hehad added, beneath the entry of the foundering of the _Betsy King_:"Our loving prayers go out in behalf of our beloved Ezekiel's son anddaughter, Asabel and Achsa. May they walk in the path their respectedfather trod before them!" "That's funny," reflected Sidney, "How _can_they when he sailed the wide seas!"
HER EYES FELL UPON AN ENTRY ON ANOTHER PAGE]
Sidney's brain actually crackled with lightning calculations. ThisAsabel and Achsa must be old but they might be still living--and atProvincetown, from whence the _Betsy King_ had sailed. Perhaps Asabelhad a boat, too. Provincetown--she looked at the map. Why, Provincetownwas at the very tip end of that crooked finger of land which alwaysseemed to be beckoning to ships to come to Massachusetts. She knew allabout it--she and Nancy had read a delightful book in which a littlegirl had lived with two guardians who were old sea captains--likeEzekiel Green. And she, Sidney Romley, had never known that she hadrelatives, real flesh-and-blood relatives, lots of them, no doubt, wholived right on Cape Cod! She wished that Nancy were with her that shemight tell her at once. She figured off the generations on her fing
ers.Ezekiel Green was her mother's uncle, her great uncle. This son anddaughter, Asabel and Achsa, were her mother's first cousins, _her_second cousins. She felt suddenly proudly rich in kin.
"Cousin Achsa!" she repeated the name slowly, wondering just how sheought to pronounce it. She pictured Cousin Achsa living in a squarewhite cupolaed house of noble dimensions that crowned a rocky eminencefrom which a sweeping view of ocean distances might be had.
This picture had no more than shaped itself in her mind than theresolution formed to communicate at once with Asabel and Achsa. Not aday must be lost. When one had girded oneself to set forth in quest ofthe Gleam one must not dally over any uncertainties.
Sidney climbed on to the box before the high desk and spread the bookbefore her for reference in spelling her relatives' names. Then shetook out a sheet of writing paper and dipped an old pen into a bottleof ink.
Her imagination seething, it was not difficult to frame her unusualletter. Indeed, the writing of it fell into quite easy lines.
"Dear Cousin Achsa:
"You will be very much surprised to get a letter from your second cousin, Sidney Ellis Romley. But I have heard my mother speak of you often. (Let it be said in justice to Sidney that she hesitated over this outrageous fib, then decided it was justified by the necessity for tact. However, some quick calculation caused her to amend her statement.) At least my older sisters have told me that she spoke often of you. You see she died when I was a baby. My father is dead, too. I live with my sisters in Middletown. I am the youngest though I am fifteen.
"My sisters have travelled extensively but I have never gone anywhere. But this summer I am going to have the Egg which is a sum of money that comes to us each year. (Here Sidney had paused to consider whether she ought to confess that her father had been a poet. She decided she need not.) I can spend the Egg any way I want to. I think I will go somewhere on a train. I came across a family tree of the New England Ellises which told all about the Greens, too, and Ezekiel Green who is your father as you know and his good ship the _Betsy King_ which I think was thrilling and how his soul is with his Maker and all about you and Cousin Asabel and it was so interesting, I mean the Greens, not the Ellises, that I have decided to visit you if it is convenient. I will not be any trouble. I wish you would write and tell me if I can come. I shall await your letter with trembling expectancy.
"Your most affectionate and new-found Cousin,
"Sidney Ellis Romley."
Sidney hurried the letter into an envelope, sealed it and addressed it.For a dreadful moment she wondered if she ought to know a street numberin Provincetown. This Achsa might have married and have another name.Then she remembered that Isolde always put their own address in onecorner of her envelopes. She printed it on hers in square letters."There, it'll come back to me if it doesn't find Cousin Achsa! But, oh,I hope it does."
"_Sid-ney!_ Luncheon. I've called you three times."
Vick's voice, sharply rebuking, broke across Sidney's occupation. Shejumped hurriedly from her perch, tucking the letter into the pocket ofher blouse. Her lips pressed together in a straight thin line of red.Life must, of course, appear to go on as usual--school and the samestupid things she did every day, Nancy, who was so distressingly shortof the standard Pola had that day forever fixed. No one, her sistersleast, must suspect that Adventure loomed so close. She would guard herplans carefully in her "inscrutable breast."