Nancy Of Paradise Cottage Part 4

"Selfish! You aren't the least bit selfish, dear. I can understand perfectly how you hate to go among all those rich girls without looking as well-dressed as any of them, when you're a thousand times prettier than the nicest looking one of them. Besides, just this once----" She paused, realizing that it was not a case of "just this once" at all.

Pretty, new clothes and pocket money would be the barest necessities when they should be at Miss Leland's. Why didn't her mother see the folly of sending them to a place where they would learn to want things, actually to need things, far beyond the reach of their little bank account, and where Alma, chumming with girls who had everything that feminine fancy could desire, would either be made miserable, or--she tried to rout her own practical thoughts. Why was it that she was so unwilling to trust in rosy chance? Why was it always she who had to bring the wet blanket of harsh common sense to dampen her mother's and sister's debonair trust in a smiling Providence? Was she wrong after all? She considered the lilies of the field, but somehow she could not believe that their example was the wisest one for impecunious human beings to follow. Lilies could live on sun and dew, and they had nothing to do but wave in the wind.

"Oh, look, Nancy--aren't those feather fans exquisite----"

"Alma, don't you dare to peep at another showcase in this store, or I'll tie my handkerchief over your eyes and lead you out blindfolded like a horse out of a fire."

"But _do_ look at those darling little bottles of perfume. They're straight from Paris. I can tell from those adorable boxes with the orange silk ta.s.sels. Wouldn't you give anything on earth to have one?

When I'm rich I'm going to have dozens of bottles--those slender crystal ones with enamel tops; and they'll stand in a row across the top of a Louis XVI dressing-table." Nancy smiled at Alma's ever-recurring phrase, "When I'm rich." She wondered if her b.u.t.terfly sister had formed any clear notions of how that beatific state was to be realized.

"Alma Prescott, there's the door, and thank heaven for it. Have the goodness, ma'am, to go directly through it. The street is immediately beyond, and that is the safest place for us two little wanderers at present."

Forty-five dollars for just one evening's fun.

Gold slippers would have been just the thing to wear with her yellow dress; but--well----

CHAPTER IV

LADIES OF FASHION

The little bedroom which Alma and Nancy shared together wore a gaily topsy-turvy appearance on that memorable night--quite as if it had succ.u.mbed to the mood of flighty joy which was in the air. The dresser, usually a very model of good order--except when Alma had been rummaging about it unchecked--was strewn with hairpins, manicuring implements, snips of ribbon and the stems of fresh flowers; all the drawers were partly open, projecting at unequal distances, and giving glimpses of the girls' simple underwear, which had been ruthlessly overturned in frantic scramblings for such finery as they possessed. A fresh, slightly scented haze of powder drifted up as Nancy briskly dusted her arms and shoulders, and then earnestly performed the same attentions for Alma. Mrs. Prescott sat on the edge of the bed, alive with interest in the primping, and taking as keen a delight in her daughters' ball-going as she had done in her own preparations for conquest twenty years before. As critical as a Parisian modiste, she c.o.c.ked her pretty head on one side and surveyed the girls with an expression of alertness mingled with satisfaction--such as you might see on the face of a clever business man who watches the promising development of a smart plan, with elation, though not without an eye ready to detect the slightest hitch.

Unquestionably she was justified in pinning the highest hopes on Alma's eventual success in life--if sheer exquisite prettiness can be a safe guarantee for such. Alma, who had plainly fallen in love with herself, minced this way and that before the gla.s.s, blissfully conscious of her mother's and sister's unveiled delight in her beauty. Her yellow hair, bright as gold itself spun into an aura of hazy filaments, was piled up on top of her head, so that curls escaped against the white, baby-like nape of her neck. Her dress was truly a masterpiece, and if there had been a tinge of envy in Nancy's nature she might have regretted the skill with which she herself had succeeded in setting off Alma's prettiness, until her own good looks were pale, almost insignificant, beside it. But Nancy was almost singularly devoid of envy and could look with the bright, impersonal eyes of a beauty-lover at Alma's distracting pink and white cheeks, at her blue eyes, which looked black in the gas-light, and at her round white neck and arms--the dress left arms and shoulders bare except for the impudent, short puffed sleeves which dropped low on the shoulder like those of an early Victorian beauty; anything but Victorian, however, was the brief, bouffant skirt, which showed the slim ankles and the little, arched feet, in their handsome slippers.

"You're perfectly--gorgeous, Alma. You've a legitimate right to be charmed with yourself," said Nancy, sitting down on the bed beside her mother to enjoy Alma's frank struttings and posings.

"I am nice," agreed Alma navely, trying to suppress a smile of self-approval which, nevertheless, quirked the corners of her lips.

"_You_ did it, though, Nancy darling. I don't forget that, even if I do seem to be a conceited little thing." She danced over and kissed Nancy's cheek lightly, her frock enchanting her with its crisp rustlings as she did so. "Nancy, you _will_ get something nice, too,--the next time?"

"You should have made up a new dress for to-night, anyhow, Nancy," said Mrs. Prescott, turning to inspect Nancy's appearance from the top of her head to the toes of her freshly ribboned slippers. Nancy colored slightly. It had not been a very easy task to overcome the temptation to "blow herself," as Alma would have debonairly expressed a foolish extravagance; and it was not particularly soothing to have that feat of economy found fault with.

"If--if you think I look too dowdy, I--I'll stay at home, Mother," she said, in a quiet tone that betrayed a touch of hurt pride. "You know it was out of the question for me to get another dress, and if you feel sensitive about my going to people like the Porterbridges in what I've got, why, it's absurd to attempt it at all."

Mrs. Prescott was abashed; then in her quick, sweet, impulsive way--so like that of a thoughtless, lovable little girl--she put her arms around Nancy's straight young shoulders.

"Don't be cross with me, darling. I only said that because it hurts me to think that you have to deny yourself anything in the world. You are so sweet, and so strong, and--and I love you so, my dear, that I cannot bear to think of your having to deny yourself the pretty things that are given to the daughters of so many other women."

Instantly Nancy unbent, and, turning her head so that she could kiss her mother's soft hair, she whispered, with a tender little laugh:

"Before you begin pitying us, dearest, you can--can just remember that other women's daughters haven't been given--a mother like you." And then, because, just like a boy, she felt embarra.s.sed at her own emotion, and the tears that had gathered in her eyes, she said briskly:

"If anyone should ask me my candid opinion, I'd say that I'm rather pleased with myself--only some inner voice tells me that I'm not completely hooked. Here, Mother----" By means of an excruciating contortion she managed to indicate a small gap in the back of her dress just between the shoulder blades.

"You do look awfully nice, Nancy," commented Alma; she paused reflectively a moment, and then added, "You know, I suppose that at first glance most people would say I was--was the prettier, you know--because I'm sort of doll-baby-looking, and pink and white, like a French bonbon; but an artist would think that you were really beautiful--I hit people in the eye, like a magazine cover, but you grow on them slowly like a--a Rembrandt or something."

"Whew! We've certainly been throwing each other bouquets broadcast to-night," laughed Nancy, who was tremendously pleased, nevertheless.

"You'd better put your cloak on, Alma, and stop turning my head around backwards with your unblushing flattery. Isn't that our coach now?"

The sound of wheels on the wet gravel and the shambling cloppity-clop of horses' hoofs, had indeed announced the arrival of the "coach."

"Darn it, that idiotic Peterson has sent us the most decrepit old nag in his stable," remarked Alma, looking out of the window as she slid her bare arms into the satin-lined sleeves of her wrap. "I think he calls her 'Dorothea,' which means the 'Gift of G.o.d.'"

"She looks like an X-ray picture of a baby dinosaur. I hope to heaven she won't fall to pieces before we get within walking distance of the Porterbridges'," said Nancy. "I think that so-called carriage she has attached to her must be the original chariot Pharaoh used when he drove after the Israelites."

In a gay mood, the two sisters climbed into the ancient coupe, which smelt strongly of damp hay, and jounced away behind the erratic Dorothea, who started off at a mad gallop and then settled abruptly into her characteristic amble.

A light, gentle, steady rain pattered against the windows, which chattered like the teeth of an old beggar on a wintry day. The two girls, deliciously nervous, would burst into irrepressible giggles each time when, as they pa.s.sed a street lamp, the ridiculously elongated shadow of Dorothea and the chariot scurried noiselessly ahead of them and was swallowed up in a stretch of darkness.

"My dear, I'm scared _pink_!" breathed Alma, pinching Nancy's arm in a nervous spasm. "My tummy feels just as if I were going down in an awfully quick elevator."

"I don't see what _you_ are scared about," replied Nancy. "_I_ almost wish this regal conveyance of ours _would_ break down."

"It feels as if one of the wheels were coming off."

"I guess they are all coming off; but it's been like that since the dark ages already, and I dare say it will last another century or so."

"Look! There's Uncle Thomas' house, now. Doesn't it look exactly like something that Poe would write about? That one light burning in the tower window, with all the rest of the house just a huge black shape, is positively gruesome."

The two girls peered through the dirty little mica oval behind them at the strange old mansion, the bizarre turrets of which were silhouetted against the sky, where the edges of the dark clouds had parted, and the horizon shone with a paler, sickly light.

"It is eerie looking. I suppose old Uncle T. is up in that room poring away over his books, and the last thing he'd be thinking of is his two charming nieces bouncing off to an evening of giddy pleasure in this antique mail-cart, or whatever it is."

"Oh, my dear!" Alma squealed faintly. "We're getting there! Oh, look at all the automobiles. We can't go in in this dreadful looking thing."

"All right. You can get out and walk. I say, do your hands feel like damp putty?"

"_Do_ they! I feel as if I were getting the measles. Oh, here we are, Nancy!" Alma's tone would have suggested that they had reached the steps of the guillotine. Dorothea, alone, was unmoved, and almost unmoving. With her poor old head dangling between her knees, she crawled slowly along the broad, well-lighted driveway of a very new and very imposing house, beset fore and aft by a train of honking and rumbling motors. Nancy burst into a little breathy quaver of hysterical laughter.

"We must try to be more like Dorothea," she giggled. "Her beautiful composure is due either to an aristocratic pedigree or to her knowledge that she is going to die soon, and all this is the vanity of a world which pa.s.ses."

In spite of their inner agony of shyness, however, the two girls descended from the absurd old carriage at the broad steps, and reached the door, under the footmen's umbrellas, with every outward appearance of well-bred _sang-froid_.

"I'm so glad you could come, Nancy. Alma, how lovely you look. Don't you want to go upstairs and take off your wraps?" Elise Porterbridge, a tall, fat girl, dressed in vivid green, greeted them; and, with all the dexterity of a matronly hostess, pa.s.sed them on into the chattering mob of youths and girls which crowded the wide, brightly lighted hail.

Alma clutched Nancy's arm frantically as they squeezed their way through to the stairs.

"Did you see a living soul that you knew besides Elise?" whispered Alma as they slipped off their wraps into the hands of the little maid.

"Oh, it would be too awful to be a wall-flower after I've gone and gotten these lovely slippers and everything."

"Don't be a goose. This is a good time--don't you know one when you see it? Here, pinch your cheeks a little, and stop looking as if you were going to have a chill. You're the prettiest girl here, and that ought to give you some courage."

While Nancy poked her dress and tucked in a stray wisp of hair, Alma stood eyeing the modish, self-a.s.sured young ladies who primped and chattered before the long mirrors around them, with the round solemn gaze of a hostile baby. How could they be so cool, so absolutely self-contained?

"Come on,--you look all right," said Nancy aloud, and Alma marvelled at the skill with which her sister imitated that very coolness and indifference. If she had known it, Nancy was inwardly quaking with the nervous dread that attacks every young girl at her first big party like a violent stage fright.

They made their way slowly down the broad stairs, pa.s.sing still more pretty, chattering debonair girls who were calling laughing, friendly greeting to the young men below.

From one of the other rooms a small orchestra throbbed beneath the hum of voices; the scent of half a dozen French perfumes mingled and rose on the hot air; and the brilliant colors of girls' dresses stirred and wove in and out like the changing bits of gla.s.s in a kaleidoscope.