Princess Part 7

The Christmas festivities were to close on New Year's Eve with a grand ball at Shirley.

It was to be a sumptuous affair with unlimited Chinese lanterns, handsome decorations, a magnificent supper, and a band from Washington.

The Smiths were going to requite the neighborhood's hospitality with the beating of drums, the clashing of cymbals, and the flowing of champagne. This cordial friendly people had welcomed them kindly, and must have their courtesy returned in fitting style. Mrs. Smith suggested a simpler entertainment, fearing contrast, and any appearance of ostentation, but the general gauged his neighbors better. They were at once too well bred, and too self-satisfied for any idea of comparison to occur to them. They would eat his fruit-cake, or make him welcome to their corn-bread with the same hearty unconcern. His wealth, and their own poverty troubled them equally little; they were abstract facts with which hospitality had nothing to do. But in their way they were proud; having given their best without grudge or stint, they would expect his best in return, and the general was determined that they should have it. The risk of offense lay in simplicity, not grandeur.

Mrs. Royall Garnett came over to Lanarth a day or so before the grand event, bearing her family in her train, to a.s.sist in the weighty matter of a suitable toilet for Pocahontas. She was a tall, handsome woman, with a n.o.ble bearing, and great decision of character; and on most matters--notably those pertaining to the sacred mysteries of the wardrobe, her word with her family was law. Grace's taste was admitted to be perfect.

After an exhaustive discussion of the subject, at which both Berke and Royall ignorantly and gratuitously a.s.sisted, and were flouted for their pains, it was irrevocably decided that Pocahontas should appear in pure white unrelieved by a single dash of color.

"She looks cheap and common in any thing but dead black, or pure white, at a party," p.r.o.nounced Grace with sisterly frankness, and of course that settled the matter, although Mrs. Mason did venture on the modest protest that it would look "bride-like and unusual."

"I want her to look unusual," declared Grace; "to make her so, is at present the object of my being. I shall hesitate at nothing short of cutting off her nose to secure that desirable result. To be admired, a woman must stand out distinctly from the throng; and I've set my heart on Princess's being the belle of the ball. Have you plenty of flowers, dear? As flowers are to be your sole garniture, you must have a profusion.

I can't tolerate skimpy, rubbishing bouquets."

"None at all, Grace," confessed Pocahontas, ruefully, "except a single calla. I cut my last white rosebuds and camellias to send to Nina Byrd Marion the very day before I heard about the Shirley ball. Isn't it provoking?"

"Then somebody must get you some," Grace responded promptly, pausing in her preparations, and regarding her sister with the air of an autocrat; "if the men are not lost to all sense of honor and decency, you'll have plenty. Of course you _must_ have plenty. If only they will have sufficient intellect to select white ones! But they won't.

I'd better instruct Roy and Berkeley at once."

On the morning of the ball, Berkeley entered his mother's room, where the three ladies sat in solemn conclave regarding with discontent a waiter full of colored flowers which a thoughtful neighbor had just sent over to Pocahontas. He held in his hand a good-sized box which he deposited in his sister's lap with the remark:

"Look, Princess! Here's a New Year's gift just come for you. I don't know the writing. I wonder what it is!"

"A subtle aroma suggests--fruit," hazarded Grace, sniffing curiously.

"Perhaps flowers," suggests Mrs. Mason, who that morning was a woman with one idea.

Pocahontas wrestled with the cords, unfolded the wrappers, and lifted the cover. Then she uttered a long drawn "oh" of satisfaction.

"What is it?" demanded the others with lively impatience.

Pocahontas lifted a card and turned it in her hand, and a smile broke over her face as she answered: "Flowers; from Jim Byrd."

Then she removed the damp moss and cotton, and lifted spray after spray of beautiful snowy jasmin--Cape Jasmin, pure and powerful, and starry wreaths of the more delicate Catalonian.

Only white flowers--all jasmin, Jim's favorite flower; and with them were tropical ferns and gra.s.ses. As she held the exquisite blossoms in her hands and inhaled their rich perfume, the girl was conscious that when her old friend penned the order for the fragrant gift, his heart had been full of home, and of the evening beside the river when she had worn his flowers in hair and dress, and had bidden him farewell.

"How beautiful they are!" exclaimed Grace, excitedly, "and just in time for to-night. To think of the way I've made that wretched husband of mine charge through the country since day-break, this morning, in pursuit of white flowers, and here they come like a fairy story. It was very nice of Jim. I'd no idea there was so poetical an impulse in the old fellow; as the selection of these flowers appears to indicate."

"You don't appreciate Jim, Grace. You do him injustice. If thought and care and love for others, combined with tenderness, and delight in giving pleasure, const.i.tutes poetical impulses, then Jim Byrd is the n.o.blest poet we are likely ever to meet." Pocahontas spoke warmly, the color flushing to her cheeks, the light coming to her eyes. Poor Jim!--so far away.

Was it disloyal to her old friend to go that night to dance among strangers in the rooms that had been his,--that were full of a.s.sociations connected with him? At all events, no flowers would she wear save his; no other ornaments of any kind. It would seem, then, as though he partic.i.p.ated in her pleasure; rejoiced in her joy.

Jim loved always to see her happy. For reasons of their own, the two elder ladies had decided on remaining at home, so that Pocahontas repaired to the ball in male custody alone. Blanche, who was on the watch for the Lanarth party, came forward the instant of their arrival, accompanied by her father, to welcome them, and to bear Pocahontas away to the upper regions to warm herself and remove her wrappings. The rooms were a little chill, she explained, with a shiver, in spite of the splendid fires the general had kept roaring in them all day. Pocahontas must remain where she was and warm herself thoroughly, and she would send one of the boys for her presently. And after a little girlish gossip and mutual admiration of each others' appearance, the small maiden tripped away to her duties below.

Soon there was a knock at the door, and Pocahontas, catching up fan, bouquet and handkerchief, opened it and stepped into the hall. Nesbit Thorne, slender and distinguished looking, was awaiting her, Blanche having encountered and dispatched him immediately on her return to the parlors. As the girl stood an instant framed by the open door, thrown into relief by the soft glowing background of the warmly lighted room, Thorne's heart swelled with mingled gladness and impatience. Joy in the pure perfection of her beauty; impatience at the restraint circ.u.mstances forced him still to put upon his love.

At the foot of the stairs they were pounced upon by Percival, who had selected that coigne of vantage as least likely to attract his mother's attention, there to lay in wait for the cards of the unwary. He had been strictly forbidden to importune grown young ladies for dances unless they happened to be wall-flowers, and the injunction lay heavy on his soul. "I _will_ ask girls other men ask," he muttered, darkly, "I hate putting up with refuse and leavings. I'm going to ask the ones I want to ask," and he intrenched himself beside the stairway with intent to black-mail such girls as he should fancy.

Pocahontas, who had a natural affinity for boys, and a great fondness for Percival, yielded to his demand readily enough, surrendering her card to him in gay defiance of Thorne's outspoken reprobation, and laughing mischievously as the boy scrawled his name triumphantly opposite a waltz.

"B.M.! Who's B.M., Miss Princess?" he questioned, as he dextrously avoided Thorne's extended hand, and placed the card in Pocahontas's.

"You've got him down just above me, and you wrote it yourself. Who is he? Benevolent Missionary? Brother Mason?"

"Exactly!" she answered, smiling, and watching Thorne scribble his name in several places on her card. "It is Berkeley. The Byrd girls and I always saved a waltz for him to prevent his feeling left out. He don't like to ask girls generally; his one arm makes it look awkward, and he knows they wouldn't like to refuse, because they all feel sorry for him. _We_ put a hand on each shoulder, and don't care how it looks. Berke is adroit, and manages quite nicely. Often, too, it's an advantage to have a dance you can dispose of later on, so I continue to put the initials, although Berke seldom dances now. He liked waltzing with the Byrd girls best."

"You were very intimate with the Byrds, I think you said," Thorne remarked idly, bowing to an acquaintance as he spoke.

"Very intimate. See what came to me this morning; all these exquisite flowers, just when I needed them for to-night. Roy searched the neighborhood through for white flowers without success, and then these came. Aren't they beautiful?" And she lifted her bouquet toward his face.

"Extremely beautiful!" he a.s.sented, bending his head to inhale their fragrance. "It was very kind and thoughtful of your friends to send them.

I suppose, from the connection, that they are a Byrd offering."

Pocahontas laughed softly. "Yes," she said, "but they did not come from Belle, or Nina, and Susie is in California. Jim ordered them for me.

I am so pleased."

Thorne instantly raised his head and stiffened his back as though the delicate perfume were some noxious poison, and moved on with her toward the parlors in silence.

"I wish you knew Jim, Mr. Thorne," pursued the happy voice at his side; "he's such a good fellow, so n.o.ble, generous, and unselfish; we're all so fond of Jim. I wish he were here to-night to tread a measure with me in the old rooms. You would be sure to fraternize with Jim. You could not help liking him."

Thorne drew in his lips ominously. He could help liking Jim Byrd well enough, and felt not the faintest desire for either his presence or his friendship. The intervention of a woman with whom two men are in love has never yet established amity between them; the very suggestion of such a thing on her lips is sufficient to cause an irruption of hatred, malice and all unkindness.

Moreover, Thorne was in a fury with himself.

He had thought of sending for flowers for Pocahontas at the same time he dispatched the order to the Richmond florist for his aunt. He had feverishly longed to do it, and had pondered the matter fully half an hour before deciding that he had better not. He had not scrupled to pay Pocahontas attentions _before_ he realized that he was in love with her, but that fact, once established in his mind, placed her in a different position in regard to him.

She was no longer the woman he wished to draw into a flirtation _pour pa.s.ser le temps_; she was the woman he wished to marry--was determined to marry, if possible. The instinct, common to every manly man, to hold in peculiar respect the woman whom he wishes to make his wife, led Thorne to feel that, until he should be free from the fetter that bound him, he should abstain from paying Pocahontas marked attention; to feel that she would have cause of complaint against him if he did not abstain.

So he argued the case in cold blood; but now his blood was boiling and he dubbed himself fool in language concise and forcible. See what had come of his self-denial? Another man had done what he had left undone; another hand had laid in hers the fragrant offering it should have been his to bestow. Fool that he had been, to stand aside and let another man seize the opportunity!

Jasmin, too! Pah! The heavy perfume made him ill. He was conscious of a fierce longing to s.n.a.t.c.h the blossoms from her hand and crush them down into the heart of the fire and hold them there--the pale, sickly things. _He_ would have given her roses, pa.s.sionate, glorious roses, deep-hearted and crimson with the wine of love.

Pocahontas had small time for wondering over her cavalier's sudden moroseness, for no sooner had she entered the parlors than old friends crowded forward to speak to her and claim a dance; the girl was popular among the young people of the vicinity. She was a wonderful success that night. Not even Norma, for all her rich tropical beauty, was more admired.

"Our little squaw is smashing things, Berke,"

remarked Roy Garnett, later in the evening, as he joined his brother-in-law in the recess by the fireplace. "The men all swear she's the handsomest woman in the room--and on my soul I believe they're right."

"She does look well," responded Mason with all a brother's calm moderation. "Her dress is in good taste, and she moves gracefully. But she isn't the handsomest woman in the room by long odds. Look at Norma Smith."

"I have looked at her," retorted Roy shortly, "and so I suppose have the other men. There's no more comparison between her and Princess than there is between a gorgeous, striped tulip, and a white tea rose." (For some inscrutable reason Roy had never been able to endure Norma, and even grudged acknowledgment of her undeniable beauty). "Look at that fellow Thorne, now!"

he added, with the pleased alacrity of one producing an unexpected trump, "I should say that _he_ shared my opinion. He hasn't danced voluntarily with another woman in the room, nor left her side a moment that he could help. It looks as though he were pretty hard hit, doesn't it?"

Garnett was right; for after the episode with Jim Byrd's flowers, Thorne had thrown self-control to the winds. He danced with Pocahontas as frequently as she would allow him, hovered constantly in her vicinity, and only lost sight of her when dragged off by his aunt for duty dances. Twice during the evening--and only twice--did he leave her voluntarily, and then it was to dance with Norma, whose suspicions he did not wish to arouse. The instinct of rivalry had overthrown all restraint and for this evening he was madly determined to let things take their course. They were here, he and his family, in Jim Byrd's place; living in the house that had been his, entertaining the friends that had been his, in the very rooms that so short a time ago had echoed to his footsteps and resounded with his laugh. He had been thrust aside, and must continue to stand aside; the past had been his, let him keep out of the present; let him beware how he marred the future.

And for the bond that held himself, Thorne had forgotten all about it. In his pa.s.sion and excitement it was a thing without existence.

Later in the evening, there came a gleam of brightness for little Blanche; a blissful hour which indemnified her for the boredom so unflinchingly endured. As Norma only did what pleased her, most of the drudgery of entertaining fell upon Blanche, whose grievous portion it was to attend to the comfort of dowagers; to find partners for luckless damsels unable to find them for themselves, and to encourage and bring out bashful youths. As the latter considered that the true expression of their grat.i.tude lay in devoting themselves exclusively and eternally to their pretty little preceptress, Blanche had lately come to hold this part of her duty a wearisome affliction.

She was seated on a tiny sofa surrounded by a band of uneasy and enamored youths ranging in age from sixteen to twenty, when Mason caught sight of her pretty, fatigued, but resolutely courteous face, and came instantly to her rescue. He was very fond of Blanche, and teased and petted her with almost cousinly freedom. He felt himself a middle-aged man beside her, and admired her sweet face, and gentle unselfishness as unreservedly as he would have done those of a child.

Moving her draperies aside with a kindly, if unceremonious hand, he ensconced himself beside her right willingly and devoted his best energies to her amus.e.m.e.nt, and that of her small court; lifted the burden of their entertainment from her shoulders with ready tact, and waked the boys up vigorously, causing them to enjoy themselves, and forget that they were _young_; and lonesome, and foolish. Kind, thoughtful Berkeley! No wonder the silly little heart beside him fluttered joyously, and the shy blue eyes were raised to his grave handsome face with full measure of content.

And so the hours sped, golden-footed, silver-footed; and the pipers piped and the men and maidens danced and the elders gossiped, drank champagne, and reveled in the fleshpots, yawning surrept.i.tiously behind fans and handkerchiefs as the evening waned.

Pocahontas, roused from a dream of enjoyment by Roy's mandate, sped lightly up stairs to the dressing-room, and arrayed herself hastily in her m.u.f.flings. At the stairway Thorne joined her, and as her foot touched the lowest step he took her unresisting hand and raised it to his lips murmuring softly; "A happy New Year to you--my darling! my queen!"