The Gorgeous Girl Part 23

Besides, the Italian villa was to be finished shortly and that would necessitate a new round of entertainments and minor adjustments and no end of enviable publicity and comment. This diversion would take her through the late spring and summer, and in the fall she fully intended to take up dress reform and become a feminist. She had an idea of wearing nothing but draped Grecian robes--which could be made to look quite fetching if one had enough jewellery to punctuate the drapes--and of going in for barefoot dancing on the lawn. It would be more convenient if she could persuade her father and aunt not to stay on at the Villa Rosa, as it was to be called. And certainly it would have been more aesthetic to look across the street and see something besides another expensive and hopelessly mediocre brick house which another rich man somewhat after Constantine's own heart had built with pride and joy. She wished she had bought a site back from the town and created a real estate. The fact that she had not done so made her miserable for over a week, during which Gay consoled her in most flattering fashion, neglecting his own wife to do so.

Well, after the Villa Rosa--what then? Life seemed very empty. With a certain natural squareness of nature Beatrice was not the sort of woman to indulge in unwise affairs beyond a certain discreet point.

She had never learned how to study, so she could not become a devotee of some fascinating and exacting subject. Her really keen mind had merely skimmed through her studies.

Nor was she over fond of children. As she told Trudy, children were absorbing things and goodness knew if she ever had any of her own she would have a wonderful enough nursery and sun parlour with panels designed by a child psychologist; there was everything in first impressions. But take care of one of them? The actual responsibility?

Heavens, what a fate! She would engage a trained baby nurse--and then drop in at the nursery for a few moments each day to see that everything was going well.

Later, after the trying first years, she would be very proud of her children. Besides, planning children's clothes was a great deal of fun; and if she had a daughter she would see that the daughter married properly. Whether or not she was thinking of Steve, Trudy did not dare to ask; but she evidently was, as she added that one might better marry an impoverished n.o.bleman and live in an atmosphere of culture and smart society than marry someone who never attempted to be anything.

A child demanded of one intelligence up to a certain point, and faithful service, but it did not require keen intellect. A primitive knowledge of what their hurt or hunger or plain-temper cry meant--and a primitive tender fashion of coping with whichever it might be--were all that young babies demanded; and hence the Gorgeous Girl, like all finely bred and thoroughly selfish women of to-day who are bent on psychological nursery panels, refused to be tied down to the narrow routine of a nursemaid, as she called it. Love-gardening is the t.i.tle old-fashioned gentlewomen originated.

Then Beatrice cited how carefree Jill Briggs was with her four children. Goodness knew that Jill was always within hailing distance of the big time; and except for a few little illnesses and the fact that the oldest boy had died of croup the children were a complete success and perfect darlings, and Jill dressed them like old-style portraits. Besides, Jill had tried out a new system of education on the oldest boy; he had been taught to develop his individuality to the highest possible degree. At eight, just before the croup attack--though he did not know his alphabet or how to tell time and had never been cuddled or rocked to sleep with nursery jingles as soothing mental food--he could play quite a shrewd game of poker and drive a bug roadster. Beatrice, in talking over the child problem with Trudy, decided that if she ever had a son she, too, would develop the poker shark in him rather than the admirer of Santa Claus and the student of Mother Goose.

"Of course Steve thinks a woman should drudge and slave over those crying mites as if the nation depended upon it," she concluded, "but I should never pay any attention to him. He said, in front of Jill, that he always felt well acquainted with rich children, for he had pa.s.sed a similar childhood--meaning that living in an orphan asylum and being brought up by a nursemaid were much the same thing. Quite lovely of him, wasn't it?"

Trudy could not suppress her giggle.

"I'm sure the children get on well enough. Just think, if you had to plan all the meals and dress and undress them and all the baths--ugh, I never could! And when Steve begins his eloquent stories about these nursemaids who neglect children or dope them or do something dreadful I simply leave the room. He actually told Mrs. Ostrander that he saw her nurse slap her child across the face, and proceeded to add: 'It is never fair to strike a child that way. It breeds bad things in him.

And he wasn't doing anything; it was just nurse's day for nerves.' Of course the Ostranders will never forget it. Now, Mrs. Ostrander is a member of the Mothers' Council, and a dear. She just slaved over her children's nursery and she reads all their books before she allows the nurse to read them aloud. I'm sure no children were ever brought up as scientifically; they have a wonderful schedule. She told me she had never held them except when they were having their pictures made--never!--and that crying strengthens the lungs. Of course Steve says we feed our lap dogs when they whine but close the door on the baby when he tries it. So what can you do with such a person?"

To which Trudy agreed. Trudy agreed to anything Beatrice might say until the bills for the villa were settled and the O'Valleys established in the gondola-endowed home. Trudy sometimes pinched herself to realize that in such a short s.p.a.ce of time she was living in the Touraine apartment house and that her husband, whom she loathed more each day, had actually scrambled into the position of being the best decorator in Hanover and was busy splitting commissions and wheedling orders from New York art dealers and Hanover's social set.

Sometimes Nature takes her own methods of revenge, and to Mark Constantine's child she saw fit to send no son or daughter.

Constantine never mentioned his hunger for grandchildren. He had a strange shyness about admitting the desire and the plans he had made for them. But when he saw the completion of this villa and realized the thousands of dollars squandered upon it and the impossible existence his daughter would lead living therein he went to his untouched plain room, looking out on sunken gardens, to try to figure out how this had all come about.

He fumbled in mental chaos as to the meaning of all this nonsense and longed more than ever for a grandchild, someone who should be quite unspoiled and who would not approach him with light, begrudged kisses and a request for money.

The formal Venetian ball which Beatrice gave to open her new home merely amused Steve, who had really dreaded it with the hysteria of a schoolgirl. He hated the whole scheme of the house and the man who was reaping a rich harvest by engaging the army of persons who had done the work therein. He rejoiced openly at each delay on the part of the plumber, the tinsmith, the decorator; and openly gave a thanksgiving when the ill.u.s.trated wall paper for the halls, which told the legend of Psyche and Cupid, had been sent to Davy Jones's locker en route from Florence. Steve's name for the Villa Rosa was the Fuller Gloom.

But when they did move into the new-old home and Steve was led through each room of gammon and spinach, as he had faintly whispered to Mary Faithful, he found himself only amused. Now that he considered it, it was a relief to know Beatrice had such a new and absorbing plaything to take up her time and keep her aloof from his personal affairs. He sought out his father-in-law in his plain room with its walnut set and stand of detective stories, and sat down in relief, though the two men honourably refrained from criticizing a certain person openly.

At the ball Beatrice appeared in a wonderful black gown, so wonderful and expensive that its creator had given it a distinct t.i.tle--The Plume. Steve did his duty as a handsome figurehead, as someone called him; after which he was free to stroll in the gardens and smoke and wonder what manner of folks inhabited the stars.

An inspection of the house had taken place with Beatrice and Gay leading the procession, and Aunt Belle bringing up the rear. The oh's and ah's and exclamations of approval, resultant of fairy c.o.c.ktails, rewarded Beatrice for her expenditure. When she brought them into her own apartment she stood back, while Gay lisped out the story of the greatest achievement and novelty of the entire house, watching the faces of her guests so as to catch the first expression of envy which should reveal itself.

The novelty consisted in the set of bedroom furniture, which, though the rest of the house was Italian, as Gay hastily explained, was of Chinese workmanship, carved and inlaid in intricate design--two dragons fighting over pearls, with the various stages of the struggle represented on the bed legs, the bureau drawers, the easy-chair, the dressing table, and so on. The set had been made for the Emperor of China, but when his private council inspected it, it was found that one of the carved dragons on top of the four-poster bed had captured the pearl for which they had been fighting in sixty-seven or so other carvings. This signified bad luck for the emperor; misfortune and rebellion would be his lot if he slept in the bed. Though regretting the loss of the furniture the emperor felt the loss of his kingdom would be even greater, and the furniture was placed on the market. To Mrs. Stephen O'Valley was awarded the ownership as well as the privilege of writing the check that made the purchase possible. On the bed was a pillow of the material woven for emperors only, thrown in on account of the ill luck that would attend him who slept in the bed beneath the conquering dragon; and on a carved bone platter was an antique Maltese shawl which gave a rare note to the entire room.

Steve, who had regarded the emperor's rejected furniture as a cross between a joke and an outrage, gave way to his feelings by pacing up and down the hall and capturing a tray of sandwiches being carried to the supper room. But Beatrice, after Gay's speech, felt a rare joy--for every guest in the room hated her for having won the prize.

What more could she ask by way of reward?

When they were alone in the new-old home Steve felt it only decent to congratulate her. Somehow he had come to feel that keeping up sham courtesies made everything easier.

"You have worked very hard, haven't you?" he asked. "But you have wonderful results."

"Do you think so? Everyone hates me now, for there will never be another royal bedroom set like mine on the market--when you think that Gay skirmished about and won it for me, it is quite remarkable. And it shows what Gay can do when he has a little encouragement. Alice Twill was almost cross-eyed and crying; her husband nipped the chateau idea in the bud. New York men are coming here to take photographs next week. I wish the garden were in better shape. They are going to run feature stories about it.... Oh, Steve, do you think of any new place to go this summer?"

"I thought we had just moved to Venice," he said, still dazed at the amount of carved fire screens, tapestries, dim, impractical candlelights, and soft-eyed Madonnas which smiled at him on all sides.

"I must have all the office force come and see this--it would be such a treat. And we can serve tea on the lawn."

"Do. They don't often take time to go to museums."

Steve's bad nature was getting the better of polite resolves. He was thinking of Mary's clear, witty eyes as she would view the remains of a plain American house.

The next thing of interest to keep Beatrice at home was the advent of a real lion cub, following Monster's departure to canine heaven. Being too impossible of shape and disposition for any one's pride or comfort, Monster was disposed of and buried in a satin-lined coffin with a neat white headstone telling salient facts of her short existence.

While Steve was giving devout thanks for the event Beatrice was realizing that the gardens needed a dominating note, as Gay said.

During her reading of old fables and romantic legends about superwomen or extremely wicked matrons she had discovered that they nearly all possessed a lion or a bear or a brace of elephants to gambol on the green. Such a pet symbolized its owner's power and fearlessness, and any young woman who could have the Emperor of China's bedroom suite brought post haste into Hanover, U. S. A., was surely ent.i.tled to something in the jungle line for her front yard!

For the first time in his daughter's life Mark Constantine made a faint protest, suggesting that she have a taxidermist mount several lion cubs and group them about the hall--while Steve sat back in cynical amus.e.m.e.nt and asked if she were going to request the goldfish to step aside in favour of a few Alaska seals?

"If she gets a live lion--and she will, because I'm writing to a circus man now," Gay told Trudy--"I'm going to sprain my ankle and be laid up from the day the beast arrives until he goes--he won't tarry long, the police won't have it. But I'm not going to take any chances.

Still, it would never do to make a fat commission on the deal and then act as if I were afraid to come over and play cannibal with him. I guess you can go," he added, insolently.

Trudy looked at him in scorn. "You are cheap," she said. "Well, I will go! I'd just as soon be eaten by a lion as to have to live with a shrimp."

The lion arrived in due time and was named Tawny Adonis. Beatrice considered him a perfect love. He was a gay young cub and quite effective in the new background, well intentioned but lonesome for his old atmosphere of circus life and his mother and brothers. He was given a large run in the Constantine grounds, and while Aunt Belle stayed locked in her room the greater share of the time and Gay immediately sprained his ankle and was forced to send Trudy as his messenger, Mark Constantine and Steve found their time well occupied in convincing the authorities that the town infantry would not be devoured piecemeal. Hanover had never really approved of having an Italian villa crammed down its throat, and it was certainly not agreeable, to say the least, to have a lion cub at large as a dominating garden note.

"You cannot keep him, even if you pulled all his teeth and taught him to be a dope fiend," Steve said in desperation after the roars of Tawny Adonis had been reported to the police as annoying. "He is growing bigger every day and all he has done is demolish flowers and shrubs and chew up fence posts. I'm sorry for him, and I'm not particularly afraid of him, but if there was an accident with a child even the owner of a dominating garden note could not expect to go scot-free."

Her father and her friends championed Steve's stand in the matter and after a little rebelling and pouting and having the pleasure of seeing her name in all the papers as the owner of the lion cub and so on, Beatrice consented to part with him on the condition that she be allowed to give him a farewell birthday party, he being nearly a year old. She was going to ask the children of all her friends. But getting a hint of the event her friends hastily arranged a Tom Thumb wedding for charity, and then a.s.sured Beatrice it was merely a coincidence that the two things interfered with each other, wasn't it a shame?

Realizing that this dominating note was not a social a.s.set Beatrice hastily sided in with her father and the authorities.

Besides, she was tired of Tawny Adonis; he was destructive, and a secret source of worry if she could have been made to admit it. So she prepared for a birthday fete and determined to have the public-school children as the guests. But these refused her invitation as well; so she went into the slums and collected thirty harmless waifs who felt that a lion's birthday party was not to be despised, and brought them triumphantly into the Italian gardens.

The waifs gathered round an outdoor table, too busy swallowing food to bother about their possible and likely fate. In the centre of the table was a huge birthday cake for Tawny Adonis. It was made of raw hamburger steak, generously iced with bone marrow, and the single anniversary candle took the form of a balanced soup bone. After the children had eaten their fill Tawny Adonis was let loose upon the scene and at the birthday cake, and during the wild smashing of gla.s.s and china and the excited shrieks of the waifs Tawny went to the birthday cake and devoured it, soup bone and all.

Gay was out of town the day of the party but Trudy bravely a.s.sisted, as did one or two others, Mark Constantine and his sister sitting in the windows to watch the procedure while Beatrice in a gown of turquoise velvet with a coronet of frosted leaves played Lady Bountiful and dismissed the slum brigade as soon as possible, sending them home with the confused knowledge that a beautiful lady in angel clothes and a wild animal sometimes meant plenty of ham sandwiches and ice cream, as well as the opportunity to slip a fork into one's pocket.

Steve declined to take any part in the celebration, but at the conclusion of the event he appeared with policemen and a patrol wagon containing a cage, and amid gay farewells and grim coaxings Tawny Adonis was escorted to the railway station and shipped back to the circus man, at a loss of five hundred dollars--not counting the damage done--to the Gorgeous Girl!

CHAPTER XV

Trudy was keen as a brier whenever her own realm was threatened. With the shrewdness which caused her to refrain from ever speaking ill of a woman when talking to a man and never speaking aught but ill of women when talking to their own kind, she foresaw in Gay's constant attendance on the Gorgeous Girl the possibility of an unpleasant situation.

For the Gorgeous Girl had said not only to her husband but to her friends that she must find some other kind of a good time now the novelty of the Villa Rosa was exhausted. Even inky people bored her, she added; poets were no longer permitted in her drawing room, and the circle of pet robins and angel ducks had somehow wandered out of her safe keeping. An unusually pretty flock of sweetsome debutantes had thinned the bachelor ranks, and Jill Briggs's youngest boy died of some childish ailment, disturbing Beatrice more than she admitted, for some reason, and making her own thoughts poor company.

It was while she was talking of this child's death with Trudy that the latter glimpsed the handwriting on the wall, and with scantily concealed enmity determined to beat Beatrice at her own game.

"Jill is going away for the winter, poor thing," Beatrice said. "I don't blame her; it would be too horrible to have to stay and see all his things about. And it's the second child she's lost. Goodness me, she has spent hundreds on baby specialists and nurses! Well, you know yourself, Trudy--you've seen how wonderful she has been. This boy's death has so distressed her that she has decided to have two nurses stay with the children instead of one. Mighty sweet of her, as it all comes out of Jill's pocketbook and not her husband's. She says she cannot think of leaving them with one person, and she must go away because her nerves are frazzled.

"She is going to the West Indies with an artist friend, and they are going to make a marvellous collection of water-colour paintings of birds and flowers, a sort of memorial to the boy. Jill says she will sell them and give the proceeds for the _creche_ charity. Well, that is all very well for Jill to do; she has a real heartache to live down. But when you have no earthly reason to go and paint wild birds and flowers and you are bored to distraction with everything--" She shrugged her shoulders.

"Meaning yourself?" asked Trudy. "Really?"--delighted that this was so.