Rosemary in Search of a Father

"Yes, she's gone to a hotel, where a gentleman talks a story out loud, and she puts it down on paper. She's been three times; but it's so sad; the story is a beautiful one, only she doesn't think he'll live to finish it. He came here to get well, because there's sunshine, and flowers; but his wife cried on Angel's shoulder, in the next room to his, and said he would never, never get well any more. Angel didn't tell me, for I don't think she likes me to know sad things; but I heard her saying it all to a lady she works for sometimes, a lady who knows the poor man. I don't remember his name, but he's what they call a Genius."

"It's like that out here on the Riviera," said Jane, shaking her head so gloomily that the ruffled cap wobbled. "Lots of ill people come, as well as those who wants fun, and throwin' thur money about. In the midst of loife we are in death. Drat the Biby, I believe 'e's swallowed 'is tin soldier! No, 'ere it is, on the floor. But, as I was sayin', your ma and mine might be sisters, in some wyes. Both of 'em lost their 'usbins, young – "

"How did your father get lost?" Rosemary broke in, deeply interested.

"'E went to the dogs," replied Jane, mysteriously.

"Oh!" breathed the child, thrilled with a vague horror. She longed intensely to know what had happened to her friend's parent after joining his lot with that of the dogs, but was too delicate-minded to continue her questioning, after such a tragic beginning. She wondered if there were a kind of dreadful dog which made a specialty of eating fathers. "And did he never come back again?" she ventured to enquire, at last.

"Not 'e. You never do, you know, if once you goes to the dogs. There ain't no wye back. I was wonderin', since we've been acquainted, kiddy, if your pa didn't go the sime road? It 'appens in all clarses."

"Oh no, my father was lost at sea, not on the road; and there aren't any dogs there, at least I don't think so," said Rosemary.

"If it's only the sea 'as swallered 'im, 'e may be cast up again, any day, alive an' bloomin'," replied Jane cheerfully. "My ma 'ad a grite friend, sold winkles; 'er 'usbin was lost at sea for years and years, till just wen she was comfortably settled with 'er second, along 'e comes, as large as loife. Besides, I've read of such things in the Princess Novelettes; only there it's most generally lovers, not 'usbins, nor yet fathers. Would you know yours again, if you seen 'im?"

Rosemary shook her head doubtfully, and her falling hair of pale, shimmering gold waved like a wheat-field shaken by a breeze. "Angel lost him when I was only two," the child explained. "She's never talked much to me about him; but we used to live in a big house in London – because my father was English, you know, though Angel's American – and I had a nurse who held me in her lap and told me things. I heard her say to one of the servants once that my father had been lost on a yacht, and that he was oh, ever such a handsome man. But – but she said – " Rosemary faltered, her grey-blue eyes suddenly large and troubled.

"What was it she said?" prompted Jane, with so much sympathetic interest that the little girl could not refuse to answer. Nevertheless, she felt that it would not be right to finish her sentence.

"If you please, I'd rather not tell you what Nurse said," she pleaded. "But anyway, I'd give everything I've got if my father would get found again. You see, it isn't only not having proper Christmases any more, that makes me feel sad, it's because Angel has to work so hard for me; and if I had a father, I s'pose he'd do that."

"If 'e didn't he'd deserve to get What For," said Jane, decidedly. "If you was a child in a story book, your pa'd come back and be lookin' for you everywhere, on Christmas Eve; this Christmas eve as ever was."

"Oh, would he?" cried Rosemary, a bright colour flaming on her little soft cheeks.

"Yes; and what's more," went on her hostess, warming to the subject, "you'd know 'im, the hinstant you clapped heyes on his fice, by 'eaven-sent hinstinct."

"What's 'eaven-sent-hinstinct?" demanded Rosemary.

"The feelin' you 'ave in your 'eart for a father, wot's planted there by Providence," explained Jane. "Now do you hunderstand? Because if you do, I don't know but you'd better be trottin'. Biby's gorn to sleep, and seems to be sleepin' light."

"Yes, I think I understand," Rosemary whispered, jumping up from her footstool. "Goodbye. And thank you very much for letting me come and see you and the baby."

She tiptoed across the room, her long hair waving and shimmering again, softly opened, and shut the door behind her, and slowly mounted the stairs to her own quarters, on the fourth floor.

CHAPTER FIVE

ROSEMARY IN SEARCH OF A FATHER

SHE had a doll and a picture book there, but she had looked at the picture book hundreds of times; and though her doll was a faithful friend, somehow they had nothing to say to each other now. Rosemary flitted about like a will o' the wisp, and finally went to the window, where she stood looking wistfully out.

Supposing that Jane were right, and her father came back out of the ocean like the fathers of little girls in story books, this might be a very likely place for him to land, because there was such lots of sea, beautiful, sparkling, blue sea. Of course, he couldn't know that Angel and she were in this town, because it was only about a month since they came. It must be difficult to hear things in ships; and he might go away, to look for them somewhere else, without ever finding them here.

Little thrills of excitement running from Rosemary's fingers to her toes felt like vibrating wires. What could she do? Jane had said, if he came at all, he was sure to come on Christmas Eve, according to the habit of fathers, and it was Christmas Eve now. By and bye it would be too late, anyhow for a whole year, which was just the same as forever and ever. Oh, she must go out, this very minute!

The child had put on her hat and coat, before she remembered that Angel had told her she must never stir beyond the hotel garden alone. But then, Angel probably did not know this important fact about fathers lost at sea, returning on Christmas Eve, and not at any other time.

If she waited until Angel came in, it might be after sunset, as it had been yesterday; and then even if they hurried into the street to search, they could not recognize him in the dark.

"I do think Angel would surely want me to go, if she knew," thought Rosemary.

Her heart was beating fast, under the little dark blue coat. What a glorious surprise for Angel, if she could bring a tall, handsome man into this room, and say, "Dearest, now you won't have to work any more, or cry in the night when you think I've gone to sleep. Here's father, come back out of the sea."

"Oh, oh!" she cried, and ran from the room, afraid of wasting another instant.

The sallow young concierge had often seen the child go out alone to disappear round the path that circled the hotel, and play in the dusty square of grass which, on the strength of two orange trees and a palm, was called a garden. He thought nothing of it now, when she nodded in her polite little way, and opened the door for herself. Five minutes later, he was reading of a delicious jewel robbery, which had happened in a tunnel near Nice, and had forgotten all about Rosemary's existence.

The little girl had an idea that she ought to go to the place where ships came in, and as she had more than once walked to the port with her mother, she knew the way very well.

Two white yachts were riding at anchor in the harbour, but no one had come on shore who looked handsome enough for a father to be recognised by 'eaven-sent-hinstinct, the moment you set eyes upon him. Rosemary stood by the quay for a few minutes, uncertain what to do. Two or three deep-eyed, long-lashed Monegasque men smiled at her kindly, as Monegasque men and Italians smile at all children. She had learned to lisp French with comparative fluency, during the months she and "Angel" had spent in Paris; and now she asked where the people went who had come in on those pretty white ships?

"Those are yachts," said one of the deep-eyed men; "and the people who come on them are rowed to shore in little boats. Then they go quickly up the hill, to the Casino – that big white building there – so that they can put their money on a table, or take somebody else's money off."

"I have always seen dishes put on tables," said Rosemary, "never money. If I went there, could I take some off? I should like to have a little, very much."

"So would we all," smiled the deep-eyed man, patting her head. "They would not let you in, because you are too young."

"I want to find my father, who has been on the sea," the child explained. "Do you think he might be there?"

"He is sure to be there," said the deep-eyed man; and he and the other men laughed. "If you sit on a bench where the grass and flowers are, outside the Casino door, and watch, perhaps you will see him come down the steps. But you are small to be out all alone looking for him."

"It's very important for me to find my father before it is dark," said Rosemary. "So I thank you for telling me, and now goodbye."

Daintily polite as usual, she bowed to them all, and started up the hill.

As she walked briskly on, she studied with large, starry eyes the face of every man she met; but there was not a suitable father among them. She was still fatherless when she reached the Place of the Casino, where she had often come before, to walk in the gardens or on the terrace at unfashionable hours with her mother, on Sundays, or other days when – unfortunately – there was no work to do.

She had sat down on a bench between a French "nou-nou," with a wonderful head dress, and a hawk-visaged old lady with a golden wig, and had fixed her eyes upon the Casino door, when the throb, throb of a motor caught her attention.

Now an automobile was a marvellous dragon for Rosemary, and she could never see too many for her pleasure. Above all things, she would have loved a spin on the back of such a dragon, and she liked choosing favourites from among the dragon brood.

A splendid dark blue one was panting and quivering before the door of the Hotel de Paris, having just been started by a slim chauffeur in a short fur coat. As Rosemary gazed, deciding that this was the noblest dragon of them all, a young man ran down the steps of the hotel and got into the car. He took his place in the driver's seat, laid his hand on the steering wheel as if he were caressing a baby's head, the chauffeur sprang up beside his master, and they were off. But with a cry, Rosemary rushed across the road.

The nou-nou shrieked and hugged her muffled charge; the old lady screamed, and all the other old ladies and young ladies, and pretty girls sitting on the benches, or walking about, screamed too.

The man who drove was pale under his coat of brown tan as with a crash of machinery he brought the big blue car to a stop so close to the child that its glittering bonnet touched her coat. He did not say a word for an instant, for his lips were pressed so tightly together, that they were a white line.

That beautiful, little golden-haired, smiling thing, so full of life! But it was all right now. She was smiling still, as if she did not guess the deadly peril she had just escaped.

"Don't you know, little one," he asked gently, "that it's very dangerous to run in front of automobiles?"

"Oh, but I wanted so much to stop you," said Rosemary.

"Why, do you know me?" And the young man smiled such a pleasant smile, with a gleam of white teeth, that the child was more than ever sure she had done right.

"Yes, I know you by 'eavensenthinstinct." She got out the long word with a gasp or two; but it was a great success. She had not mixed up a single syllable.

The young man burst out laughing. "Where's your nurse?" he asked.