Brenda's Bargain Part 9

"Oh, auntie found me in the park, and she sent nurse off."

Then Brenda explained that Lettice looked so sweet that she just couldn't bear to leave her behind, "and nurse," she added, "fortunately had a very important errand down town, and was so glad that I could take Lettice off her hands, and so--"

"'The lady protests too much, methinks,'" interposed Ralph. "But you really need not apologize. I am always glad to have Lettice here, even though her mother does think her too young to receive at afternoon teas."

"At four years old--I should think so. There, dear, you mustn't touch anything on the table," for the little girl, on tiptoe, was trying to reach a plate of biscuit.

Lettice withdrew her hand quickly, and, when her wraps were removed, allowed herself to be perched on a tabaret, where her mother said she was safe from harming or being harmed.

The studio was filled with trophies that Mr. and Mrs. Weston had collected abroad. The high carved mantle-piece was the work of some medieval Hollander, the curtain shutting off one end of the room was old Norman tapestry--the most valuable of all their possessions. Each chair had, as Brenda sometimes said, a different nationality. Her own preference was for the Venetian seat, with its curving back and elaborate carving. As it grew darker outside the studio was brightened by the light from a pair of Roman candlesticks.

Only one or two of the paintings on the wall were Mr. Weston's work.

When asked, he always said that he had very little to show, and that he did not believe in boring his guests by driving them, against their judgment, perhaps, to praise what they saw.

"Mock modesty!" Brenda had exclaimed at this expression of opinion.

"If I were sure that that was a genuine Tintoretto, I should believe that you were afraid of coming in direct compet.i.tion with an old master; though, to tell you the truth, I'm glad that your work is a little brighter and livelier," she concluded.

One or two callers had now come in, and Brenda took her place at the tea-table, that Agnes might be free to move about the large studio. Soon the nurse appeared, and Lettice, protesting that she was a big girl and ought to stay, was ignominiously carried home.

"Where's Arthur?" asked Ralph, as he stood near Brenda, waiting for her to pour a cup of tea for a guest.

"I'm sure I don't know."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," responded Ralph ceremoniously. "I fancied that you might have heard him say what he intended to do."

Ralph went off with the tea, and Brenda continued to pour for other guests. But her mind was wandering. She served lemon when the guest had asked for cream, and generously dropped two lumps into the cup of one who had expressly requested no sugar. In spite of herself her eye travelled often to the door, and an observer would have seen that her mind was far away. When at last she saw Arthur entering the room some one was with him, and the two were laughing and chatting gayly.

"Oh, we had such a time getting here," cried the shrill voice of Belle.

"Mr. Weston's been making calls with me in Jamaica Plain, and the cars were blocked coming back, so that it seemed as if we should never get here."

"But we're glad to arrive at last;" and Arthur moved toward the table, while Belle lingered for a word or two with Agnes and her husband.

"Poor thing!" exclaimed Belle, when at last she joined Arthur beside the table. "Poor thing! have you been shut up here pouring tea all the afternoon? You ought to have been with us; we've had a perfectly lovely time."

"You don't care for sweet things, so I won't give you any sugar," said Brenda, without replying directly to Belle.

"Come, Belle, you must see this sketch of Lettice. It is the one you were asking about." Agnes had come to the rescue.

As Belle turned away, Arthur tried to make his peace, for he saw that in some way he had displeased Brenda. He explained that he had merely happened to meet Belle, who was out on a calling expedition. He had accompanied her to one or two houses, because when she had paid these visits she intended to go to the studio. "I really meant to call for you, although you were so uncertain yesterday about coming," he concluded apologetically.

"Of course you knew I would come. I always do on Thursdays," replied Brenda; "but you were not obliged to call for me if you had something pleasanter to do."

"Ah, Belle is never out of temper." Arthur spoke significantly, annoyed by Brenda's unusual dignity of manner. Then, as she turned to speak to some one at the other side of the table, he crossed the room and joined Belle.

Since the death of her grandmother two years before, Belle and her mother had been away from Boston. They expected to spend the coming season in Washington, as they had the preceding. Belle now p.r.o.nounced Boston altogether too old-fashioned a place for a person of cosmopolitan tastes, and she dazzled the younger girls and the undergraduates of her acquaintance by talking of diplomatic and state dignitaries with the greatest freedom. According to her own estimate of herself, she was one of the brightest stars in Washington society.

Although she and Brenda were less intimate than formerly, when Belle was in town she was with Brenda more than with any other girl of her acquaintance. Despite her insincerity and her various other failings, now much clearer to Brenda than in her school days, Belle had certain qualities that made her very companionable, and Brenda was inclined to overlook her less amiable traits. Indeed, she had clung to Belle in spite of the protests of various other girls. But to-day she felt impatient with Belle. Her high, sharp voice grated on her ear. Her witticisms seemed particularly shallow, and almost for the first time Brenda realized that the words with which Belle raised a laugh from those present carried a sting for some one absent.

Again Belle approached her. "I suppose your cousin never indulges in frivolities like this. I hear that she has withdrawn altogether from the world into some kind of a home or inst.i.tution."

"There, Belle, how silly you are! If you'd spend more time in Boston, you'd at least hear things straight. Julia is just as fond of frivolity as any of us, only it's the right kind of frivolity."

"Oh, excuse me," exclaimed Belle with mock sorrow. "I had entirely forgotten your new point of view. You used to feel so differently about your cousin."

"Well, it is irritating to hear you talk about her being in an inst.i.tution. Surely you've heard about Miss South and the old Du Launy Mansion; and if you go up there and call, you'll see that they are not shut out from the world."

"Dear! dear! why need you take everything so seriously. There! why, it's half-past five! I'm really afraid to go home alone."

This was said as Arthur came within earshot, and, of course, he could only offer to go home with her, as she professed to be in too great a hurry to wait for Brenda and the rest of the party.

"But I will come back for you," murmured Arthur, as he turned away.

"No, thank you; you needn't," responded Brenda stiffly; "I have Ralph and Agnes, and really I don't care for any one else."

"Very well, then, we'll say good evening;" and the two young people went off after Belle had said her farewells very effusively to all in the studio.

As Brenda sat alone in a corner of the studio after the other guests had gone, she had an opportunity to think over the events of the past few years which some of Belle's sharp remarks had brought up. Ralph and Agnes were busy discussing designs for some picture-frames that he was to have made, and, sitting apart, Brenda in a rather unusual fit of reverie recalled some of the happenings of the six years since her cousin Julia had first come into her life. When first she learned that her orphan cousin, who was a year and a half her senior, was to become a member of her family, she had been far from pleased. Without feeling jealousy in its meanest form, she was annoyed lest the presence of Julia should interfere with her enjoyment of her little circle of intimate friends. Edith Blair, Nora Gostar, Belle Gregg and she had formed a pleasant circle, "The Four," into which she did not care to have a fifth enter. Consequently she was far from kind to her cousin, and would not invite her to the weekly meetings of the group, when they gathered at her house to work for a bazaar. Belle prompted and upheld Brenda in her att.i.tude toward her cousin, while Nora and Edith were Julia's champions.

Later Julia had an opportunity to behave very generously toward Brenda, and from that time the cousins were good friends. Belle's departure for boarding-school and her later absence in Washington had naturally lessened her intimacy with Brenda. Julia, after two years at Miss Crawdon's school with Brenda, had entered Radcliffe College, where in her four years' course she had made many friends, and had been graduated with honor. Belle, as well as Julia and Brenda, had been one of Miss South's pupils at Miss Crawdon's school, but she was one of the few with no interest whatever in the work begun at the Mansion--a work which the majority had been only too glad to help.

Belle had never shown herself to Brenda in so unlovely a light as on this particular afternoon at the studio. Yet she had often been far more disagreeable in her general way of expressing herself. The difference was that now Brenda herself had begun to look at life in a very different way. She had a higher standard; she understood and admired her cousin, even though in many ways they were very unlike, and Belle in contrast seemed particularly shallow.

Then, too, to be perfectly honest with herself, she had to admit that she was surprised and not pleased that Arthur Weston should show so much interest in the society of Belle.

"Come, Brenda, are you dreaming? We are ready to go home."

At the sound of her sister's voice Brenda rose quickly, and was ready with a laughing reply to one of her brother-in-law's witticisms.

Brenda was not inclined to be melancholy, and the half-hour of retrospect had been good for her.

VII

IN DIFFICULTIES

On the same floor with the gymnasium at the end of the hall was a room whose door was usually locked. In pa.s.sing up and down it was not strange that occasionally the girls would rattle the handle in their anxiety to catch a glimpse of the inside of the room. But the door was always fastened, and this fact allowed them to speculate widely as to what the room contained.

"It is full of clothes and jewels that belonged to Miss South's grandmother," announced Concetta. "She was a very strange old lady, and as rich as rich could be, and when Miss South wants any money, she just sells some of the things from this room."

"Oh, then the things must be beautiful; I wish we could see them!"

"Well, we'll watch and watch, and perhaps some day we shall find it open."

Once or twice, however, on their way to the gymnasium the girls had noticed this door ajar, and great had been their curiosity about it; for Concetta, who was never backward in wrongdoing, had announced that she meant to go in at the close of the gymnastic lesson, and look into some of the trunks that were piled against the wall.

"No, no," replied Gretchen, to whom she confided her intention, "that wouldn't be right."