Brenda's Ward Part 19

"Yes, mamma! indeed I often think of economizing, for even though it is pleasant here, living in an apartment with only Angelina and a cook is very different from being in our house at home, and I know we're here to save money. How some of the people we know would stare to see us trying to help with the work! why, the week the cook left I actually saw you washing dishes."

Mrs. Stratford smiled faintly; some of her Boston experiences had been trying, but she had said little to Martine about them.

"So far as I am concerned," added Martine, "I have enjoyed everything in Boston. I have learned lots about cooking, and if it wasn't for school, sometimes I think we could manage just with Angelina. But I am going to economize so that papa will hardly know me when he comes home in June. I can get along with only one tailor-made suit, and perhaps two or three new silks this spring. But I do hope we can plan something worth while for the summer. Wouldn't you like the Yellowstone, with our own special guide, papa, Lucian, and all of us, and I could invite Priscilla, and we might have a few weeks in one of those big hotels among the mountains.

What sport it would be!"

Martine paused, almost out of breath.

"We can't make many plans until we hear from your father," replied Mrs.

Stratford, quietly, "but what you suggest isn't exactly in the direction of economy."

"Oh, I didn't suppose we'd have to economize always. Then you ought to speak to Lucian, mamma, he has ordered a new touring car."

"That is the worst of indulging a boy from the cradle," and Mrs.

Stratford sighed. "Last year your father told him he might have a new car this spring, and Lucian thinks he's very moderate because he is keeping within the two-thousand-dollar limit. I don't like to stop him, for if things come out as well as they may, he can have it."

"Two thousand dollars!" exclaimed Martine, to whom figures usually did not mean much. "That is a large sum! Why, it would put a boy through college."

She was thinking of Balfour Airton, and all that this amount of money would do for him.

"Mrs. Blair," continued Martine's mother, "calls Lucian very moderate in his college expenses. He stands well in his cla.s.ses, too. She says that Philip spent three times as much."

"And he had to leave Harvard without a degree!"

"He has made it up since, and he is doing splendidly in business."

"Edith says it's Pamela's influence that has done so much for him."

"He was lucky enough to find a girl like her to marry him."

"She certainly is a superior woman--even if she is country-born and a college graduate, as Mrs. Blair would say," responded Martine, smiling.

"If only they lived nearer, I should spend half my time with cousin Pamela--if she'd let me, but Lincoln seems far away in the winter.

That's one thing we'd gain from Lucian's new car; those out-of-town places would seem close at hand."

Lucian, when Martine spoke to him about his car, admitted that he had ordered it, and he tried to laugh away her concern over family affairs.

But his efforts in this direction were not really successful, and he saw that his sister was still troubled in spite of his argument that, if things were really going badly, he would have heard more from his father.

"He'd be the last one to wish me to countermand the order. Why, every fellow in our set has a new machine this spring. I thought I was doing something to send my order in so early, though of course if worse comes to worse, I can get rid of it easily enough. Mine is to be ready in June, and I know a fellow who would take it off my hands gladly enough, as he can't get his until August. I'm going to pray, however, that things won't come to that pa.s.s."

Martine, fortunately, was not inclined to borrow trouble, and although she by no means forgot the little conversation with her mother regarding her father's business, remembering it did not depress her. Life in the spring, even in a bleak New England spring, holds so many pleasant things for a girl of seventeen that intangible troubles are not likely to prevent her enjoyment of the present.

Martine was popular at school, and her invitations far exceeded those of the majority of her cla.s.smates. The younger girls liked her because she was always cheerful, and never snubbed them. The older girls admired her because she had an air of knowing the world, and was ever ready with some amusing story. She was popular without having many intimate friends, and Priscilla was proud of the distinction of being the one girl who knew Martine the best. Here and there, naturally enough, there were girls who did not care especially for Martine. There were one or two who professed an inherent dislike of outsiders, as a cla.s.s, and there were others who found fault with Martine in particular. They said that she was forward, that she was patronizing, and that her liberality in the spending of money was merely a way of "showing off" of which they did not approve. But the fact that Martine, at the beginning of the school year, had been dubbed "Brenda's ward" was more effectual than any other one thing in placing her within the inner circle of the school. In spite of the years that had elapsed since Brenda was a pupil at Miss Crawdon's, she and her doings were still remembered. Older sisters had talked to younger sisters about her, and everyone knew that she had been the most popular girl of her day. She was still spoken of most habitually as "Brenda," even by those who had not known her well. For in Boston the unmarried names of girls cling to them longer than in most cities, and those who immediately recalled "Brenda Barlow" had to think twice when "Mrs. Arthur Weston" was named.

Priscilla, who was nothing if not exact, remonstrated occasionally with girls who spoke of Martine as "Brenda's ward."

"She never was really her ward, you know, only Brenda was to chaperone her, and now that Mrs. Weston has gone away, it seems to me that the name ought to be dropped."

The girls to whom Priscilla spoke only laughed at her.

"My dear child," said Marie Taggart, "from the way you cling to her, I judge you would rather have Martine called 'Priscilla's ward,' but Brenda is so far away that you mustn't be jealous of her, really and truly you must not."

After this Priscilla said no more on this subject, although an observer would have noticed that she herself never spoke of her friend by the obnoxious t.i.tle.

When Mrs. Stratford and Martine first took possession of Brenda's little apartment, Brenda's mother and sister, Mrs. Barlow and Mrs. Weston, added much to their pleasure by introducing them to their large circle of relatives and friends and in other ways, as Mrs. Barlow put it, "adopting" them in Brenda's place. But before January had come to an end the whole Barlow household was itself preparing to move. His physician had prescribed a change of air for Mr. Barlow, and after a few weeks in Florida the family intended to travel West, to join Brenda in California in the late spring.

It happened, therefore, that the special groups to whom Mrs. Barlow had introduced the Stratfords felt no personal responsibility for them. This was not because they did not find the Chicagoans interesting, but because the latter seemed able to make their own friends without the help of a third person.

"It would be a great bore, mamma," Martine had protested, when one or two of Mrs. Barlow's friends urged that the young girl should join a certain exclusive dancing-cla.s.s. "It would be a great bore if we had to act as if we were real old Bostonians. We are not, and though some of the sewing circles and dancing-cla.s.ses, and afternoon-readings are offered us kindly, I do prefer to be independent and know only the people I want to know and do only the things I really wish to do.

Anything else would be a nuisance, so please don't let anyone make social engagements for me."

Mrs. Stratford herself was not strong, and she really preferred a quiet life. Later she saw that Martine herself had been very wise in her att.i.tude of independence. Martine indeed was happy enough--happy in her school acquaintances, happy in her friendship with Priscilla, and happier in her affection for Amy. It is true that Amy in this her last year of college was too busy to give much time to Martine, but when occasionally they had a half-day together, no one could have doubted their perfect understanding of each other.

On the morning before the matinee to which Mrs. Stratford had referred, or to be more exact, at twelve o'clock on the very day of the great Paderewski recital, Martine ran out to the letter-box to post two or three notes. Angelina could have taken them for her, or she might better have followed the custom of the house, which was to give them to the hall-boy. But Martine had not been out that morning, as illness among her drawing pupils had occasioned a postponement of the usual Sat.u.r.day lesson. She had therefore seized on the letters as an excuse for getting a breath of the fresh spring air that came in through the half-open windows, tantalizing her and urging her to leave the house.

"I half wish I were not going to the recital," she said to herself, "on a mild sunny day like this I begrudge the hours I must spend in a crowded hall, and though I won't have to pretend to be in a seventh heaven over the music, yet it will weary me to have to show a proper degree of appreciation in the presence of my guests." So ran the course of Martine's thoughts as she approached the letter-box. After a turn or two in the mall under the trees, she walked back slowly toward the house.

"After all," she mused, "mamma was probably right. I have been extravagant. The tickets have really cost a pretty sum, counting premiums and all. For what is the good in inviting guests, unless one has the very best seats?"

This thought of the seats inclined Martine to look again at her tickets, and as soon as she reached her room she went to her desk to look at them.

"Mamma," she called, "you haven't by any chance seen a narrow envelope with my Paderewski tickets?"

"No, my dear," replied her mother, "surely you haven't lost them?"

"Oh, no, I remember now, I put them in a larger envelope; they were lying here with my letters."

A moment later Martine stood before her mother with dismay written on her face. "What do you suppose I have done? it's too foolish and too annoying for anything. I can't find the envelope with the tickets and I really believe that I dropped it into the letter-box."

"Oh, Martine, I thought you'd outgrown those careless habits!"

"I thought so too, but there's no use in crying about spilled milk; I will try to do what I can to get the tickets from the postman."

"There again you talk like a baby," said Mrs. Stratford. "Surely you must know that no postman can give you anything from a letter-box simply because you ask for it."

"Well, I can try, that is if there's time."

"But it's half-past twelve now, and if you are to meet Priscilla at half-past one, you will have all you can do to dress and keep your appointment."

"But, mamma, what _can_ I do without tickets? It will be terrible if we can't get in, and how everyone will laugh at me. And they were such good seats in the house."

"I am sorry for you, my child, but I can say little to help you."

While they were speaking, Martine had been making a rapid calculation.

The only result at which she arrived was the impossibility of recovering the lost envelope.

"There's one thing I can do," she said. "I'll dress as quickly as I can and run over to the branch postoffice; then I'll beg them to look over their mail and see if an envelope is there with the tickets I describe."

"Of course you can try, but I feel sure that you will not succeed."