Brenda's Bargain Part 24

The first exclamations of pleasure were called out by the sight that met their eyes. One side of the room had been divided by part.i.tions to make two rooms. Each was furnished completely, and even those girls who were too old to play with dolls were fascinated by the house; for each of the two rooms was fitted up with absolute perfectness, from the wall-paper to the tiny cushions on the sofa. They were on a scale large enough for everything to be seen in detail, but a degree or two smaller than life size. Pamela justly prided herself on the completeness of it all, and this completeness had been made possible only by the kindness of Julia, who had told her to spare no expense in having the house furnished exactly as she wished it to be. She was safe in giving this wide permission, since Pamela's friends all knew that extravagance was absolutely impossible with her, and that she would use another's money more carefully even than her own.

Both rooms were furnished like sitting-rooms, but they differed utterly in style. Maggie put it correctly by saying that one was "warm and fussy-looking," while the other was "cool and restful."

The floor-covering on the former, painted to imitate a real carpet, was of bright colors and florid design. The reds and greens of which it was composed were just a little off the tone of the flowered wall-paper,--a greenish background with stiff bunches of red flowers, "that look as if they were ready to jump out at you," as one of the girls put it.

The little chairs and couch were upholstered in bright brocade velvet, each one different from the others, and none in harmony with the paper or with each other. On the tiny centre-table were one or two clumsy pieces of bric-a-brac, and the pictures on the walls were small chromos in ugly gilt frames. There were bright cushions on the divan, and crocheted tidies on every chair.

Nellie thought this room "perfectly beautiful." Her cousin's wife, whose husband was a prosperous teamster, had one almost like it, she said. "Oh what lovely easy-chairs! I hope I'll have a parlor as elegant as this some day."

The other room did not please her, it was too plain; whereas Concetta, within whose breast there must have lingered some remnant of Italian artistic instinct, thought it altogether beautiful.

This second room had a plain, dull-green wall-paper, on which hung a few photographs suitably framed. There was matting on the floor, and in the centre a green art-square. The chairs were of rattan, in graceful shapes, with green cushions, and one of artistic design in black wood with broad arms was comfortably cushioned for a lounging-chair. A bookcase, also of black wood, was filled with plainly bound books. On the rattan centre-table was a tall green vase with a single rose in it, and near by two or three small volumes of good literature. The ornaments on the mantle-piece were few and well chosen, and each had an evident reason for being there. The simple gilt moulding at the top was in contrast with the fussy frieze in the other room, and the plain net draperies at the windows were much more agreeable than the lace curtains in the other room, with their elaborate pattern and plush lambrequins.

Each girl as she came in was given a small blank-book, and was asked to note down what she thought of each room, and to state her reasons for preferring one room to another.

"Ought we to like one more than another?" Inez asked anxiously.

"Oh, Inez," said Haleema, "you are like sheep, you never stand alone,"

which, although not an exact rendering of the proverb, at least partly described the disposition of little Inez, who was far from independent.

"My book isn't half full," said Phoebe, after she had written for several minutes.

"Ah, that isn't all," rejoined Maggie.

"No, indeed," added Pamela, who had been listening with much interest to all the comments. "You have entirely neglected this end of the room. You will probably find more to do here than at the other end."

Here the wall had been covered with a plain gray denim, against which were pinned samples of wall-paper of every quality and color. Some were quiet and in good taste, as well as inexpensive; others were evidently costly, and at the same time loud and glaring. Each piece was numbered, and the girls were asked to write in their books their opinion of these samples.

Again, on a table near the wall-paper lay a number of cards with pieces of dress fabric fastened to them, and the girls were asked to state which would probably hold their color the best, which would be suitable for a working dress, which for a durable winter dress; and near certain bright-colored fabrics were tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of various sorts, and they were asked to tell which would best harmonize with the fabric.

"It ought not to be so very hard for you to answer these questions,"

said Julia, as she found Concetta scowling over her blank-book. "I know that Miss Northcote has had much to say to you this winter about furniture and wall-papers, and you ought to remember the reasons she has given for calling one thing more beautiful than another. Then, as to dress materials, why, think of our shopping expeditions, and the trouble I have taken to make you understand what is best."

"Yes, 'm," said Concetta. "If there's to be a prize, I'll try to prefer the best things; but if there won't be one, why, I think I'll just say what I really think."

"Oh, Concetta! Concetta! you are hopeless," responded Julia; and though she smiled slightly at this frank confession, she felt a little depressed that her winter's work should have had no better effect.

At five o'clock the books were all collected and put in Pamela's care for discussion at the next meeting of her cla.s.s, and a few minutes later the aunts or cousins of the girls, as the case might be, began to appear. Their "oh's" and "ah's" were genuine as they looked at the two rooms; the numbers were about equally divided between those who preferred the restful room and those who preferred the fussy and gaudy one. They were greatly surprised to find that the more showy room had had no more money spent on it than the other. To them it looked much the more expensive; whereas to Julia and Nora and the others it was a surprise that the cheap and shoddy things of the gaudy sitting-room had cost as much as those in the really aesthetic apartment.

All had been invited to the six-o'clock tea, and this had been designed to show the skill in cooking of some of the number,--or perhaps I should say skill in the preparation of a meal, since much that was to go on the table was prepared under the eyes of the visitors.

The dainty sandwiches, for instance, were so prepared. There were three or four different kinds, of lettuce, of cheese, and some with nuts laid between, to the great surprise of Mrs. McSorley. She had a.s.sociated with the name only the sandwich of the ham variety. Then the cold chicken, creamed and served in the chafing-dish, and put steaming on the plates; the chocolate that Maggie prepared on a tiny gas range, crowned with whipped cream that she had whipped before their very eyes,--all these things had their effect. When Luisa showed the blanc-mange that she had made, "without any flavor of soup," Haleema remarked so mischievously, that Luisa had to admit that earlier in the season she had prepared some blanc-mange in a kettle which had not been washed since some strong-flavored soup had been contained in it. Each girl had one special dish that she had made the day before,--cake, or biscuit, or jelly. The results were very satisfactory to the admiring relatives, who went home particularly pleased with the Mansion and the young ladies, as well as with their own particular loaf of cake or mould of jelly, as the case may be. Each one, too, carried away a fine photograph of the Mansion, under which Pamela had written one of her ever applicable Ruskin quotations.

"The girls to spin and weave and sew, and at a proper age to cook all proper ordinary food exquisitely; the youth of both s.e.xes to be disciplined daily in the studies."

This was at the bottom of the card, and at the top she had written:

"Never look for amus.e.m.e.nt, but be always ready to amuse."

"There," said Julia, after the last visitor had departed, "I don't suppose that any of our guests know that we are college women, nor probably have they heard the time-worn discussion as to whether college women are capable of understanding the management of a house, but it strikes me that we made a pretty good showing this evening."

"Ah," replied Miss South, "I am older than you, and I can say pretty confidently that no one need stand up for the college woman as home maker; she needs no defence. More than half the college graduates of to-day have homes of their own that are well managed, and have a high sanitary standard, and--but there, I am talking as if you needed to be convinced, whereas this is very far from being the case."

"Indeed, Miss South," said Nora, "even I, who am not a college girl--"

"Oh, but you are; don't forget the good work that you did as a special at Radcliffe."

"Thank you, Julia, but I'm only slightly a college girl. Well, even I always have plenty of ammunition ready when one or two persons I might mention have things to say about the uselessness of a college education."

"You are a good champion in any cause, and we thank you," said Julia, slipping her arm in Nora's, and making a low courtesy.

This exhibit of Pamela's was the end of the festivities at the Mansion.

The evenings were growing warm, and the interests of the girls were turning in other directions. The meetings of the League were regular sewing circles, and the busy needles of the members struggled through the heavy denim that was to be used in comfort bags for the soldiers, or they hemmed flannel bandages, or applied themselves to other useful bits of work suggested by the Woman's Auxiliary of the Aid a.s.sociation. While others worked, Angelina read aloud to them, for she was fond of reading; and those girls who had friends or relatives in the regiments that were going South were proud of the fact, and referred to it often.

But Maggie--poor Maggie! It seemed to her that she had reason to be prouder than any of them, for she not only had a letter, but a photograph, from a soldier, and to her Tim was a really heroic figure in his blouse and campaign hat. And the words had a sacred meaning, "I'm going to do something great before you see me again; I'll do something great, and by and by we'll have that home of our own."

She could not talk about this to any one, for the mention of Tim's name still aroused a very bitter spirit in Mrs. McSorley, and Maggie feared that if she confided even in Miss Julia, Tim's plans might in some way come to Mrs. McSorley's ears. Although living now afar from her immediate authority, Maggie still stood in great awe of her aunt, and though the rather scanty praises bestowed on her showed a change in Mrs.

McSorley's spirit, Maggie knew how unwise it would be to speak to her of Tim.

Of the staff, Brenda was the only one who had little to say about the war. She had not written to Arthur nor he to her since the Artists'

Festival; but she heard of him indirectly through Ralph and Agnes. His regiment had gone to Tampa before the end of May, and if he was waiting for her to reply to that unanswered letter, he waited in vain. Brenda, when once she had made up her mind, was very determined. She showed, however, that she was not happy. Her face had lost its color, and she had less animation.

"It all comes from staying indoors so much. Really, you must come with us to Rockley," her parents insisted.

But Brenda would not change her mind. She was now taking the place of Anstiss, who had been called home on account of the illness of her mother.

"I did not know that you could be so industrious, Brenda. Have you any idea how many hundred of these comfort bags you have made this spring?"

"No," said Brenda, so shortly that Edith knew that she had made a mistake in asking the question.

XVIII

WHERE HONOR CALLS

In all his life Philip Blair had hardly learned a harder lesson than that teaching him that it was his duty to stay at home with his father at a time when so many of his friends and cla.s.smates were setting off for the war. "They also serve who only stand and wait," echoed constantly in his ear, though unluckily almost as imperative was another refrain, "He that lives and fights and runs away, may live to fight another day." It seemed to him not unlikely that those who did not know him very well might put him in the latter cla.s.s,--of those who avoided a present danger for an unlikely and distant good.

He could not deny the fact that his father was evidently ill, and as evidently needed him. This in itself was reason enough for his staying in Boston. He had so thoroughly mastered the details of the business, that it would have been false modesty to deny that his departure would make no difference. Even had his father been in perfect health, Philip's departure would have thrown a certain amount of care upon him; but in his present rather weak condition the young man felt that he had no right to add to his burden. He envied Tom Hearst his commission as captain in a regiment of regular troops, and he felt that his years on the ranch had especially fitted him for a place with the Rough Riders.

What an opportunity this war might offer a young man for real distinction! and yet the chance was that he could have no part in it.

Poor Philip! If some of his critics could have read his heart, they would have had less to say about his staying at home. Certain complications in his father's business had led him to give up his plans for studying law. He was now a business man, pure and simple, and almost any one would admit that he was devoting himself to his father's interests.

In one of his downcast moods one evening he strolled over to the Mansion to take a message from Edith to Julia. His family had already gone down to Beverly, but Edith, with her usual conscientiousness, let hardly a week pa.s.s without sending some special message to Gretchen.

The evening was one of the close and sultry evenings of early spring, and as Philip drew near he was pleased to hear the voices of Brenda and Julia. The two were seated on a rattan settle that had been drawn out into the vestibule, and upon greeting them Philip discovered Pamela and Miss South near by. After delivering Edith's message the conversation drifted to the ever-engrossing subject.