Lizbeth of the Dale Part 25

Jarvis, and began to hope devoutly that she would not meet the lady.

There seemed little fear of it. The rooms were crowded and stifling hot. The Raymond house had plenty of doors and windows, but good form in Cheemaun society demanded that all light and air be excluded from a fashionable function. So the blinds were drawn close, and Estella and her mother stood broiling beneath the gas-lamps, for though the former was half-suffocated with the heat, she would have entirely suffocated with mortification had she received her guests in the vulgar light of day.

By the time Elizabeth and her sister arrived, the sheep had been thoroughly divided from the goats. From the drawing-room on the left side of the s.p.a.cious hall a babel and scream of voices mingled with the noisy notes of a piano poured forth, but in the library on the right there was a deathly silence, except for the click, click of the cards on the polished tables.

The guests were met at the door by an exceedingly haughty young woman with a discontented face beneath a huge pompadour of hair. "Will you come upstairs and lay off your wraps?" she demanded frigidly.

"Why, Katie!" cried Elizabeth, recognizing her old schoolmate, even in her unaccustomed garb of a black silk gown and white cap, "I'm so glad to see you."

But Miss Price was not going to forgive Lizzie Gordon for being a guest at a house where she was a servant. Had their positions been reversed Katie would have been quite as haughty and forbidding as she was now.

"How d'ye-do," she said, with an air her young mistress, now setting her foot upon the social ladder, might well have envied. "You're to go upstairs," she commanded further.

"But we haven't anything to take off," protested Mrs. John Coulson, nervously, afraid she was omitting some requisite part of the ceremony.

"We'd better not if Mrs. Raymond doesn't mind."

The young woman relaxed none of her haughtiness. "She said to take everybody up," she remarked disdainfully.

They were interrupted by a very large Hat coming violently out of the library door.

"Goodness, it's not her!" gasped the occupant of the hat, a tiny woman with a brisk, sharp manner. She turned to the room again. "No luck!

It's Mrs. Coulson." She spoke as if Mrs. Coulson had made a mistake in coming. "You didn't see that Mrs. Oliver on your way down, did you?"

she demanded of the unwelcome one.

No, they had not seen her. Mrs. Coulson answered apologetically, and the big Hat flounced back into the library and sat down heavily in its chair. The Hat was bitterly disappointed, and no wonder. She had come to the Function sure of the prize, being one of Cheemaun star players, but had met with a succession of incompetent partners. At present Mrs.

Oliver, a fine old Bridge warrior, should have been sitting opposite her, but Mrs. Oliver was late, which was criminal, and the Hat's partner was a nervous young matron who had left two sick babies and her wits at home. Consequently the aspirant for the prize had lost game after game and was now losing her temper. One of her opponents, a frivolous lady whose score-card was decorated with green stars, giggled and whispered to the hapless partner not to mind, the Hat was only an old crank anyway; old maids always got like that. She would have continued in the same strain but for a look of deep rebuke from her own partner. The partner was a stately, middle-aged lady, a president of the Cheemaun Whist Club, and a second Sarah Battle. She had suffered much from the silly inattention of the winner of the green stars, she frowned majestically, not because she objected to the young woman's condemnation of the Hat, but because she considered it much worse form to talk during a game of cards than during prayers in church.

Again deep silence fell, and they all went furiously to work once more in the breathless heat.

Elizabeth was very much interested, but Mrs. John Coulson drew her away towards the palm and fern-embowered door of the drawing-room. She was somewhat disappointed at the news of Mrs. Oliver's non-appearance, for that meant that neither was Mrs. Jarvis present. The fates did seem to be against Lizzie certainly.

They were once more delayed. A couple of ladies who had just entered were about to make their way to the drawing-room door, but had been encountered by Miss Price, and a rather heated argument was in progress. The ladies belonged to the old school, and were not acquainted with the intricacies of a fashionable function. The foremost was a fine, stately matron who had been Sarah Raymond's stanch friend ever since the days when they had run barefoot to school together. And while under her sensible black Sabbath bonnet there still remained much warm affection and sympathy with all Sarah's doings, at the same time there was developing not a little impatience with what she termed Sarah's norms. She had just caught sight of the card-players in the library, too, and was righteously indignant that she, an elder's wife, should have been bidden to such a questionable affair. So she had not much patience left to waste on Miss Price when that haughty young lady insisted upon her going upstairs. "We've nothing to take off, young woman," she declared at last; "can't you see that? Do you want us to undress and go to bed?" And with that she brushed Katie aside and proceeded on her way. A dapper little man in a dress-suit, the only man anywhere in sight, popped out from behind a great palm and demanded, "Name, please, madam?" Elizabeth regarded him with awe. He represented the zenith point of Estella's ambition. They always had such a functionary at swell receptions in the city, she had explained to Elizabeth, a man who announced the names of the guests to the hostess. No one had ever had anything so magnificent in Cheemaun.

Of course he had to come up from Toronto to do the catering anyway, because Madeline had had him at her reception, and Estella was going to go just a little farther, and didn't Beth think it was a perfectly splendid idea--so grand and stylish?

Beth supposed it was. But of what use would he be. "I thought a man like that was to tell the hostess the names because she wouldn't know them," she had ventured very practically. "But you know every cat and dog in Cheemaun, Stella."

Stella was disgusted with Beth's obtuseness. "Style was the thing after all," she explained. "People who gave social functions never bothered about whether things were any use or not. That wasn't the point at all."

Elizabeth had not attempted further to see the point, as the Vision had claimed her attention, and she now looked at the young man with some pride. Evidently Estella was doing things up magnificently. But the ladies whom he addressed were differently impressed. Mrs. Colin McTavish's patience was exhausted. The idea of anyone in Sarah Raymond's house asking her her name! She looked down at the dapper little man with disdain. He was a forward young piece, she decided, some uppish bit thing that was dangling after Stella, most likely.

"Young man," she said severely, "where's your manners? Can ye no wait to be introduced to a body?"

The young man looked alarmed. He glanced appealingly at Mrs. John Coulson, and Annie, with her more perfect knowledge of Estella's ways, whispered tactfully:

"He wants to call out your names, Mrs. McTavish; he's doing it for everybody."

Mrs. McTavish stared. "And what for would he be shouting out my name?"

she demanded. "If Sarah Raymond doesn't know my name by this time she never will. Come away, Margit," she added to her companion, and the two pa.s.sed in unheralded.

"Mrs. Coulson! Miss Gordon!" piped the little man, and Elizabeth found herself shaking hands with Mrs. Raymond and Estella. Or was it Estella?

The young debutante, in a heavy elaborate satin gown, stood with a fixed and anguished smile upon her face, squeezing the fingers of each guest in a highly elevated position, and saying in a tone and accent entirely unlike her old girlish hoydenish manner:

"How do you do, Mrs. McTavish, it was so good of you to come. How do you do, Mrs. Cameron, it was so good of you to come. How do you do, Mrs. Coulson, etc., etc."

A wild desire for laughter with which Elizabeth was struggling was quenched by a feeling of pity. She wondered how many hundred times poor Estella had said those words during that long hot afternoon, and wondered how long she herself could stand there in that awful heat and repeat them in that parrot-fashion, ere the wild streak would a.s.sert itself and send her flying out of doors. Estella was made of wonderful stuff, she reflected, admiringly. Mrs. Raymond had succ.u.mbed long ago and stood drooping and perspiring, scarcely able to speak, and quite unable to smile.

Elizabeth felt queer and strange when Estella shook her two fingers just as she shook everyone else's and with the same smile made the same remark to her. She tried to say something to bring back her old schoolmate, but Estella turned to the next person and she found herself shoved on. And shoved on she was from that time forth, conscious only of heat and noise and f.a.g and a desire to get away.

She found herself at last, after having been shoved into the dining-room for ice-cream, and shoved out again, packed into a corner behind Annie. The latter had been pinioned by a fat lady who, for the last quarter of an hour, had been shouting above the din a minutely detailed account of a surgical operation through which she had lately come, omitting not one jot of her sufferings. Elizabeth felt faint.

The rich sweetmeats of the tea-table, the heat, the noise, and the lady's harrowing tale, were rendering her almost ill. She looked about her desperately. Just behind her was a French window. It was open, but the heavy lace-bordered blind was drawn down to within a couple of feet from the floor. All unmindful of the conventionalities, Elizabeth stooped and peeped out. The breath of fresh air revived her. The sight of the garden, and beyond, the free stretch of the out-door world went to her head like wine. She jumped up, her eyes sparkling with a sudden glorious thought. One more glance around the buzzing hot sea of flowery hats and white gloves made the thought a resolution.

"Ann!" she whispered recklessly, "I'm going to jump through this window and run away! I am so!"

"Lizzie!" gasped Mrs. Coulson in dismay. The fat lady was still under the surgeon's knife and talked on undisturbed. Annie's heart sank.

One glance at the gleam in Elizabeth's eyes showed her the wild streak was uppermost. "What are you saying?" she faltered, but before she could remonstrate further Elizabeth had acted. With a lightning-like motion she dropped upon her knees, and, fortunately concealed by the crowd and the heavy curtains, she darted cat-like beneath the window-blind and disappeared.

She found herself upon a secluded side of a veranda, and still on all fours; she gave a mad caper across the floor, and staggered to her feet, her hat flopping rakishly over one ear.

Then she stood, motionless with dismay. Right in front of her, half-reclining in a veranda chair, was a lady, a richly dressed lady of very sedate appearance, who was gazing with startled eyes at the tumultuous apparition.

"I--I beg your pardon," gasped Elizabeth. "But I couldn't stand it another minute."

The two looked at each other for a moment, and then the stately woman and the hoydenish girl, with one accord, burst out laughing.

Elizabeth flung herself upon a chair and rocked convulsively.

"It--it's the first time I've ever got into society," she said between gasps; "and now I've gone and got out of it again."

"And a peculiar manner of exit you chose," said the lady, wiping her eyes on a lace handkerchief. "But I must confess I ran away too."

"You?" cried Elizabeth, amazed.

"Yes. I came here with my niece, I am sure an [Transcriber's note: line missing from source book?] hours ago. She disappeared into the card-room, and I slipped out here. I didn't come in your original manner, however." She laughed again.

"I should think not," said Elizabeth, sitting up and straightening her hat. She was now quite at her ease, since the lady was proving so delightfully sympathetic. "I am afraid I'm not truly genteel, or I shouldn't have bolted at my first sight of high life."

"How will you feel when you have been to hundreds of such affairs, all exactly alike, I wonder?" asked the lady wearily.

Elizabeth shook her head. "I couldn't stand it. My aunt thinks I need the refining influence of good society, but it doesn't seem to have had that effect upon me," she added rather mournfully.

The lady laughed again. "Well, as receptions go, it seemed to me a very pretty one indeed, and Miss Raymond is a beautiful girl."

"Oh, Stella's lovely," cried Elizabeth enthusiastically, "and everything is just grand, far more splendid than anything I ever saw before. You see, I never was at anything but a High School tea or something of that sort," she added artlessly. "But the refreshments made me ill; really, I was quite sick."

The lady looked both amused and interested, and Elizabeth rattled on:

"You see, I got my ice-cream in a mould--a little chicken; what was yours?"

"A rose, I think--some sort of flower."