Round the Corner in Gay Street Part 20

"Look at Murray! Is he proud of her, or is n't he?"

"Proud as Lucifer. And has a right to be. His mother looks pretty complacent herself. And Olive--she's stunning, as usual. But our Jane--"

The time to go forward had arrived. With head up and shoulders squared Peter led the way. As he pa.s.sed his host and hostess he was a model of well-trained propriety, but when he reached Jane and Murray his formal manner relaxed, and he grasped each hand with a hearty grip.

"You're a delightful pair," he murmured, "and the sight of you takes me off my feet."

"You look perfectly composed, even bored," retorted Murray, laughing, glad to greet a brother who could be relied upon not to say the usual thing.

But Jane whispered as she smiled up at him, "I 'm dreadfully frightened, Petey, and I can't do it well at all."

"Keep on being frightened, then," advised her brother. "The result's perfectly satisfactory, is n't it, Murray?"

"You're not really frightened?" whispered her husband, taking advantage of a slight lull in his duties to detain Peter. "She does n't look it, does she?"

"Not a bit."

"You 've only to look at mother," was Murray's comforting a.s.surance, "to know that she's entirely satisfied. If she were not--well--she'd look different, that 's all!"

CHAPTER II

SHIRLEY HAS GROWN UP

As Peter Bell abruptly rounded the corner from Gay Street into Worthington Square he saw coming toward him an attractive young figure in a white frock. He glanced at it and away again; then back, as he came nearer; once more away; then returned to look steadily, positive that his second impression had been the right one, after all. It must be that he knew this girl. If he did, he must give her a chance to recognise him.

She not only recognised him, she smiled outright, and stopping short held out her hand. The eyes which were laughing at him were eyes he had surely seen before.

Peter's hat had come off promptly; when she stopped, he stopped. When she held out her hand he took it, and stood staring down into the merry eyes with puzzled interest.

"O Mr. Peter Bell!" she jeered softly. "To be so slow to recognise an old friend--a connection of your own family. Dear, dear, you should go to an oculist! Has it been coming on long? Can you still distinguish trees and houses?"

The voice told him who its owner was, though it was a degree richer in quality than when he had heard it last, two years before. "Shirley Townsend!" he cried. "Miss Shirley, I mean, of course. Well, well! No wonder I---- When did you come? And you've grown up!"

"Of course I have. Has n't Nancy grown up? I 'm a year older than she, too. And I came last night--a whole month before they expected me. I was supposed to be going to stop in New York with Aunt Isabel for a month--after two long years away off in England at school! But Marian Hille's mother met her at the ship--she 's the girl who went with me, you know--and they came right along home. I could n't stand it to stop in New York, and I came with them. And you don't mean 'Miss Shirley' at all, of course--with Jane married to Murray!"

"Then you don't mean 'Mr. Peter Bell.'"

"You look terribly elderly yourself. But I knew you! The mere fact that you are not wearing the same clothes you were when I went away----"

"It was n't your clothes--except the extension on the length of them.

It was--it was----"

"I understand. My hair is up. I no longer wear two big black bows behind my ears."

"Your cheeks," protested Peter. "You--the English air, I suppose----"

"No, I 'm not a pale little, frail little girl any more, thanks to miles and miles of walking. You don't look very frail, either. Are n't we delightfully frank--after staring each other out of countenance? Is Nancy at home, and Mrs. Bell?"

"They 'll be delighted to see you."

"They 'll _know_ me, too," laughed Shirley.

"She certainly has grown up," thought Peter, when Shirley had walked away from him toward Gay Street. He rather wished he had not been so obviously rushing away from home when he met this new-old acquaintance.

The little Shirley had always been a good friend of his; the older Shirley looked distinctly better worth knowing. But Peter's days were busy ones; he had few moments for lingering by the side of pretty girls; nor was he wont to spend much time lamenting his deprivations.

Shirley Townsend's appearance at the door of the Bell house caused a flurry of welcoming. Nancy, after two minutes of shyness at the sight of her former chum looking so like and so unlike herself, discovered that the unlikeness was going to make no difference. It was a great relief, for somebody who had seen Marian Hille at the end of one year at the English school had declared her grown insufferably consequential, and had prophesied that Shirley Townsend would come home "spoiled."

But almost the first remark Shirley made was, "Isn't Jane the dearest thing you ever saw? And are n't we just the luckiest people to get her into the family?" So then Nancy knew it was precisely the same Shirley, and was glad.

"I don't suppose she's really as good-looking as Olive," commented Rufus, when he, too, had seen his old-time partner at tennis, and had had a game with her, "but she 's a lot more alive, and jollier, ten times over. And her playing form 's improved; she can serve a ball that keeps you up and doing for fair. She knows cricket too; she 's going to teach us. I 'm glad she 's got home. It 'll be a good deal pleasanter for Jane over there. Shirley won't go in for society, like Olive and Mrs. Harrison."

Rufus's prophecy proved a true one. Upon the second day after Shirley's return, Mrs. Townsend, Senior, announced--with some languor, as if she herself found summer affairs wearisomer after a winter which had been unusually full--that a garden-party and _musicale_ would that afternoon claim all four feminine members of the household. "Our men ought to go, too," she added, "but your father simply will go to nothing that takes him away from his business, and Murray seems to be lapsing into the same att.i.tude. Forrest, when he is at home, is my only standby, but this freak of his to spend his time travelling makes him seldom to be counted on. Shirley, I hope you have something suitable to wear. It was a strange idea for you to come home, after being two years within an hour of London, with nothing but tennis suits and cricketing shoes. If you had stopped in New York, as I expected, your Aunt Isabel would have remedied all deficiencies in your wardrobe. But as it is----"

"As it is, I 've nothing suitable, mother mine. So you won't ask me to go, will you?"

"You must have something that will do. The Hildreths will expect you, now that every one knows you are at home. Marian Hille will be sure to be there, and you ought to be, quite as much."

"I 've had two years of Marie Anne--as she wishes to be called now. I can do without her very comfortably for a day or two," objected Shirley, smiling at Jane.

Jane was indeed rejoicing in her new young sister's return. The relations between herself and Olive, although cordial and affectionate, were not based on so strong a congeniality of tastes as existed between Jane and Shirley. The girl, before she went away, had shown decided promise of originality and force of character. Looking at her now, as she stood before them in short tennis dress and fly-away hat, with vivacious, wide-awake face full of clear colour, it needed small discernment to make sure of the fact that here was a girl out of the common, and quite irresistibly out of the common, too.

"I don't like to insist, Shirley, and I would not, if you were showing the slightest fatigue after your journey. But since all the apology I could make for you would be that you preferred to play tennis in the sun with Nancy Bell----"

"I see. It's evident I must face the music--Miss Antoinette Southwode's searching soprano, and Mr. Clifford Burnham-Brisbane's wabbly tenor--and tea and little cakes. Since it's my duty I 'll do it. But, mother dear, please don't make many engagements for me. Give it out that I 'm eccentric--that Miss c.o.c.kburn told me positively, before I came away from Helmswood, that after a severe course of study under her unexceptionable tutelage I must have absolute relaxation. Say that I have no fine clothes, no floppy hats covered with roses, suitable for lawn-parties. Say anything, but after to-day don't make me go--unless I most awfully want to. Promise--_please_!"

Two firm tanned hands clasped themselves behind Mrs. Townsend's neck, two importunate black-lashed blue eyes looked at her beseechingly. The mother sighed.

"Child, what shall I do, with two of you? Here is Jane, accepting her invitations under protest, and now you are going to be still more unreasonable."

"Is Jane another? Then why not just make a simple division of labour?

You and Olive play the society parts, and give Jane and me the domestic ones."

"My dear, nothing can be so unfortunate for a girl, or for a young married woman, as to become known as peculiar. Of course you are not serious--no girl of your age is ever serious in declaring that she wants nothing to do with society--but it distresses me to have you even talk as you are doing. Go and dress, and look your best, dear, and don't worry me with this sort of thing. I am quite worn out already. Doctor Warrener advises a course of baths at a rest-cure, and I think I shall have to follow his advice."

"I'm sorry," and Shirley kissed her mother, with a pat upon the smooth white cheek, where faint lines were beginning to show. Then she went away to dress, discarding the short skirt and canvas shoes with a smothered breath of regret, but appearing, in due course of time, in a costume eminently suitable for a garden-party, at least from her own point of view. Her mother did not see her until the carriage was at the door, and then it was too late for her to do more than to murmur:

"My dear, if that is the best you can do, I must take you to a dressmaker at once. White linen is well enough for some occasions, and that hat----Did you tell me that Miss c.o.c.kburn advised it, and you got it in Bond Street? But the effect is decidedly more girlish than is necessary."

"I should think you would want me as infantile as possible, with Olive to do the dressy young lady. You and Jane and Olive, with your

'Ribbons and laces, And sweet, pretty faces,'

need a plain little schoolgirl to set you off. And I shall not be 'out'

until next winter. I 'm all right, mother dear. Miss c.o.c.kburn was always delighted with white linen, and discouraged fussy frocks. I 'm really beautifully 'English,' and you should be satisfied. Girls are n't allowed to grow up half so fast over there as here, and I think it is a sensible thing."