The Little Black Doll
by
Everybody in the Marshall household was excited on the evening of the concert at the Harbour Light Hotel–everybody, even to Little Joyce, who couldn’t go to the concert because there wasn’t anybody else to stay with Denise. Perhaps Denise was the most excited of them all–Denise, who was slowly dying of consumption in the Marshall kitchen chamber because there was no other place in the world for her to die in, or anybody to trouble about her. Mrs. Roderick Marshall thought it very good of herself to do so much for Denise. To be sure, Denise was not much bother, and Little Joyce did most of the waiting on her.
At the tea table nothing was talked of but the concert; for was not Madame Laurin, the great French Canadian prima donna, at the hotel, and was she not going to sing? It was the opportunity of a lifetime–the Marshalls would not have missed it for anything. Stately, handsome old Grandmother Marshall was going, and Uncle Roderick and Aunt Isabella, and of course Chrissie, who was always taken everywhere because she was pretty and graceful, and everything that Little Joyce was not.
Little Joyce would have liked to go to the concert, for she was very fond of music; and, besides, she wanted to be able to tell Denise all about it. But when you are shy and homely and thin and awkward, your grandmother never takes you anywhere. At least, such was Little Joyce’s belief.
Little Joyce knew quite well that Grandmother Marshall did not like her. She thought it was because she was so plain and awkward–and in part it was. Grandmother Marshall cared very little for granddaughters who did not do her credit. But Little Joyce’s mother had married a poor man in the face of her family’s disapproval, and then both she and her husband had been inconsiderate enough to die and leave a small orphan without a penny to support her. Grandmother Marshall fed and clothed the child, but who could make anything of such a shy creature with no gifts or graces whatever? Grandmother Marshall had no intention of trying. Chrissie, the golden-haired and pink-cheeked, was Grandmother Marshall’s pet.
Little Joyce knew this. She did not envy Chrissie but, oh, how she wished Grandmother Marshall would love her a little, too! Nobody loved her but Denise and the little black doll. And Little Joyce was beginning to understand that Denise would not be in the kitchen chamber very much longer, and the little black doll couldn’t tell you she loved you–although she did, of course. Little Joyce had no doubt at all on this point.
Little Joyce sighed so deeply over this thought that Uncle Roderick smiled at her. Uncle Roderick did smile at her sometimes.
“What is the matter, Little Joyce?” he asked.
“I was thinking about my black doll,” said Little Joyce timidly.
“Ah, your black doll. If Madame Laurin were to see it, she’d likely want it. She makes a hobby of collecting dolls all over the world, but I doubt if she has in her collection a doll that served to amuse a little girl four thousand years ago in the court of the Pharaohs.”
“I think Joyce’s black doll is very ugly,” said Chrissie. “My wax doll with the yellow hair is ever so much prettier.”
“My black doll isn’t ugly,” cried Little Joyce indignantly. She could endure to be called ugly herself, but she could not bear to have her darling black doll called ugly. In her excitement she upset her cup of tea over the tablecloth. Aunt Isabella looked angry, and Grandmother Marshall said sharply: “Joyce, leave the table. You grow more awkward and careless every day.”
Little Joyce, on the verge of tears, crept away and went up the kitchen stairs to Denise to be comforted. But Denise herself had been crying. She lay on her little bed by the low window, where the glow of the sunset was coming in; her hollow cheeks were scarlet with fever.