Not Quite Eighteen Part 6

Hesse looked admiringly, but a little doubtfully, at the soft, clinging fabric, rich with ma.s.ses of yellow-white embroidery.

"I am afraid girls don't wear shawls now," she ventured to say.

"My dear," said Aunt, "a handsome thing is always handsome; never mind if it is not the last novelty, put it on, all the same. The Reinikes can wear what they like, I hope! They certainly know better what is proper than these oil-and-shoddy people in New York that we read about in the newspapers. Now, here is my India shawl,"--unpinning a towel, and shaking out a quant.i.ty of dried rose-leaves. "I _lend_ you this; not give it, you understand."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I shall give you this China-c.r.a.pe shawl," said aunt, decisively.--PAGE 88.]

"Thank you, Aunt, dear." Hesse was secretly wondering what Cousin Julia and the girls would say to the India shawl.

"You must have a pelisse, of some sort," continued her aunt; "but perhaps your Cousin De Lancey can see to that. Though I _might_ have Miss Lewis for a day, and cut over that handsome camlet of mine. It's been lying there in camphor for fifteen years, of no use to anybody."

"Oh, but that would be a pity!" cried Hesse, with innocent wiliness.

"The girls are all wearing little short jackets now, trimmed with fur, or something like that; it would be a pity to cut up that great cloak to make a little bit of a wrap for me."

"Fur?" said her aunt, catching at the word; "the very thing! How will this do?" dragging out of the camphor-chest an enormous cape, which seemed made of tortoise-sh.e.l.l cats, so yellow and brown and mottled was it. "Won't this do for a tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, or would you rather have it as it is?"

"I shall have to ask Cousin Julia," replied Hesse. "Oh, Aunt, dear, don't give me any more! You really mustn't! You are robbing yourself of everything!" For Aunt was pulling out yards of yellow lace, lengths of sash ribbon of faded colors and wonderful thickness, strange, old-fashioned trinkets.

"And here's your grandmother's wedding-gown--and mine!" she said; "you had better take them both. I have little occasion for dress here, and I like you to have them, Hesse. Say no more about it, my dear."

There was never any gainsaying Aunt, so Hesse departed for New York with her trunk full of antiquated finery, sage-green and "pale-colored" silks that would almost stand alone; Mechlin lace, the color of a spring b.u.t.tercup; hair rings set with pearls, and brooches such as no one sees, nowadays, outside of a curiosity shop. Great was the amus.e.m.e.nt which the unpacking caused in Madison Avenue.

"Yet the things are really handsome," said Mrs. De Lancey, surveying the fur cape critically. "This fur is queer and old-timey, but it will make quite an effective tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. As for this c.r.a.pe shawl, I have an idea: you shall have an overdress made of it, Hesse. It will be lovely with a silk slip. You may laugh, Pauline, but you will wish you had one like it when you see Hesse in hers. It only needs a little taste in adapting, and fortunately these quaint old things are just coming into fashion."

Pauline, a pretty girl,--modern to her fingertips--held up a square brooch, on which, under pink gla.s.s, shone a complication of initials in gold, the whole set in a narrow twisted rim of pearls and garnets, and asked:

"How do you propose to 'adapt' this, Mamma?"

"Oh," cried Hesse, "I wouldn't have that 'adapted' for the world! It must stay just as it is. It belonged to my grandmother, and it has a love-story connected with it."

"A love-story! Oh, tell it to us!" said Grace, the second of the De Lancey girls.

"Why," explained Hesse; "you see, my grandmother was once engaged to a man named John Sherwood. He was a 'beautiful young man,' Aunt says; but very soon after they were engaged, he fell ill with consumption, and had to go to Madeira. He gave Grandmamma that pin before he sailed. See, there are his initials, 'J. S.,' and hers, 'H. L. R.,' for Hesse Lee Reinike, you know. He gave her a copy of 'Thomas a Kempis' besides, with 'The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me,' written on the t.i.tle-page. I have the book, too; Uncle gave it to me for my own."

"And did _he_ ever come back?" asked Pauline.

"No," answered Hesse. "He died in Madeira, and was buried there; and quite a long time afterward, Grandmamma married my grandfather. I'm so fond of that queer old brooch, I like to wear it sometimes."

"How _does_ it look?" demanded Pauline.

"You shall see for yourself, for I'll wear it to-night," said Hesse.

And when Hesse came down to dinner with the quaint ornament shining against her white neck on a bit of black velvet ribbon, even Pauline owned that the effect was not bad,--queer, of course, and unlike other people's things, but certainly not bad.

Mrs. De Lancey had a quick eye for character, and she noted with satisfaction that her young cousin was neither vexed at, nor affected by, her cousins' criticisms on her outfit. Hesse saw for herself that her things were unusual, and not in the prevailing style, but she knew them to be handsome of their kind, and she loved them as a part of her old home. There was, too, in her blood a little of the family pride which had made Aunt say, "The Reinikes know what is proper, I hope." So she wore her odd fur and made-over silks and the old laces with no sense of being ill-dressed, and that very fact "carried it off," and made her seem well dressed. Cousin Julia saw that her wardrobe was sufficiently modernized not to look absurd, or attract too much attention, and there was something in Hesse's face and figure which suited the character of her clothes. People took notice of this or that, now and again,--said it was pretty, and where could they get such a thing?--and, flattery of flatteries, some of the girls copied her effects!

"Estelle Morgan says, if you don't mind, she means to have a ball-dress exactly like that blue one of yours," Pauline told her one day.

"Oh, how funny! Aunt's wedding-gown made up with surah!" cried Hesse.

"Do you remember how you laughed at the idea, Polly, and said it would be horrid?"

"Yes, and I did think so," said Polly; "but somehow it looks very nice on you. When it is hanging up in the closet, I don't care much for it."

"Well, luckily, no one need look at it when it is hanging up in the closet," retorted Hesse, laughing.

Her freshness, her sweet temper, and bright capacity for enjoyment had speedily made Hesse a success among the young people of her cousins'

set. Girls liked her, and ran after her as a social favorite; and she had flowers and german favors and flatteries enough to spoil her, had she been spoilable. But she kept a steady head through all these distractions, and never forgot, however busy she might be, to send off the long journal-letter, which was the chief weekly event to Uncle and Aunt.

Three months had been the time fixed for Hesse's stay in New York, but, without her knowledge, Mrs. De Lancey had written to beg for a little extension. Gayeties thickened as Lent drew near, and there was one special fancy dress ball, at Mrs. Shuttleworth's, about which Hesse had heard a great deal, and which she had secretly regretted to lose. She was, therefore, greatly delighted at a letter from Aunt, giving her leave to stay a fortnight longer.

"Uncle will come for you on Shrove-Tuesday," wrote her Aunt. "He has some business to attend to, so he will stay over till Thursday, and you can take your pleasure till the last possible moment."

"How lovely!" cried Hesse. "How good of you to write, Cousin Julia, and I _am_ so pleased to go to Mrs. Shuttleworth's ball!"

"What will you wear?" asked Pauline.

"Oh, I haven't thought of that, yet. I must invent something, for I don't wish to buy another dress, I have had so many things already."

"Now, Hesse, you can't invent anything. It's impossible to make a fancy dress out of the ragbag," said Pauline, whose ideas were all of an expensive kind.

"We shall see," said Hesse. "I think I shall keep my costume as a surprise,--except from you, Cousin Julia. I shall want you to help me, but none of the others shall know anything about it till I come down-stairs."

This was a politic move on the part of Hesse. She was resolved to spend no money, for she knew that her winter had cost more than Uncle had expected, and more than it might be convenient for him to spare; yet she wished to avert discussion and remonstrance, and at the same time to prevent Mrs. De Lancey from giving her a new dress, which was very often that lady's easy way of helping Hesse out of her toilet difficulties. So a little seamstress was procured, and Cousin Julia taken into counsel.

Hesse kept her door carefully locked for a day or two; and when, on the evening of the party, she came down attired as "My great-grandmother,"

in a short-waisted, straight-skirted white satin; with a big ante-revolutionary hat tied under her dimpled chin; a fichu of mull, embroidered in colored silks, knotted across her breast; long white silk mittens, and a reticule of pearl beads hanging from her girdle,--even Pauline could find no fault. The costume was as becoming as it was queer; and all the girls told Hesse that she had never looked so well in her life.

Eight or ten particular friends of Pauline and Grace had arranged to meet at the De Lanceys', and all start together for the ball. The room was quite full of gay figures as "My great-grandmother" came down; it was one of those little moments of triumph which girls prize. The door-bell rang as she slowly turned before the throng, to exhibit the back of the wonderful gored and plaited skirt. There was a little colloquy in the hall, the butler opened the door, and in walked a figure which looked singularly out of place among the pretty, fantastic, girlish forms,--a tall, spare, elderly figure, in a coat of old-fashioned cut. A carpet-bag was in his hand. He was no other than Uncle, come a day before he was expected.

His entrance made a little pause.

"What an extraordinary-looking person!" whispered Maud Ashurst to Pauline, who colored, hesitated, and did not, for a moment, know what to do. Hesse, standing with her back to the door, had seen nothing; but, struck by the silence, she turned. A meaner nature than hers might have shared Pauline's momentary embarra.s.sment, but there was not a mean fibre in the whole of Hesse's frank, generous being.

"Uncle! dear Uncle!" she cried; and, running forward, she threw her arms around the lean old neck, and gave him half a dozen of her warmest kisses.

"It is my uncle," she explained to the others. "We didn't expect him till to-morrow; and isn't it too delightful that he should come in time to see us all in our dresses!"

Then she drew him this way and that, introducing him to all her particular friends, chattering, dimpling, laughing with such evident enjoyment, such an a.s.sured sense that it was the pleasantest thing possible to have her uncle there, that every one else began to share it.

The other girls, who, with a little encouragement, a little reserve and annoyed embarra.s.sment on the part of Hesse, would have voted Uncle "a countrified old quiz," and, while keeping up the outward forms of civility, would have despised him in their hearts, infected by Hesse's sweet happiness, began to talk to him with the wish to please, and presently to discover how pleasant his face was, and how shrewd and droll his ideas and comments; and it ended by all p.r.o.nouncing him an "old dear,"--so true it is that genuine and unaffected love and respect carry weight with them for all the rest of the world.

Uncle was immensely amused by the costumes. He recalled the fancy b.a.l.l.s of his youth, and gave the party some ideas on dress which had never occurred to any of them before. He could not at all understand the principle of selection on which the different girls had chosen their various characters.

"That gypsy queen looked as if she ought to be teaching a Sunday-school," he told Hesse afterward. "Little Red Riding Hood was too big for her wolf; and as for that scampish little nun of yours, I don't believe the stoutest convent ever built could hold her in for half a day."

"Come with us to Mrs. Shuttleworth's. It will be a pretty scene, and something for you to tell Cousin Marianne about when you go back," urged Mrs. De Lancey.

"Oh, do, do!" chimed in Hesse. "It will be twice as much fun if you are there, Uncle!"

But Uncle was tired by his journey, and would not consent; and I am afraid that Pauline and Grace were a little relieved by his decision.