Chance of a Lifetime (11 page)

“Why, yes, I suppose I do”—Sherrill hesitated—”if I could go right. I’d like to see New York, and just get an idea of how our relatives live. But I can’t help feeling it’s not going to be congenial.”

“Well, even if it isn’t it will be a good experience for you. Take it as a part of your discipline of life then, and make the most of it. Now, run away upstairs and get out your old things. Let’s see what we’ve got to go on before we plan for new things. You ought to have at least one or two new things that could be made over for every day. We always have bought more goods than we needed with that in mind you know. There’s that green crepe with the satin back. There’s a full yard and a half of that. I’m sure that would work up into a nice little dress.”

“Why yes, of course,” said Sherrill, looking up brightly. “I’m sure it will, and maybe the brown satin, too. I’ll go and see.”

“Why don’t you go up to the attic and look in my mother’s trunk?” said Grandma. “You might find some goods there. You know when your great-grandmother was young they wore skirts with nine breadths in them. That ought to make one of the little skimpy makeshifts they wear now. I remember there was a real handsome brocade, gold and silver and pink rosebuds in it. It might be tarnished, I don’t know. Here, I’ll get the key and you go look. It’s the little haircloth trunk under the eaves.”

“Oh, Grandmother! You wouldn’t want me to cut up Great-Grandmother’s wonderful brocade!”

“Why not?” said Grandmother Sherrill proudly. “She can’t wear it anymore, and I’m certain I shan’t! You know you’d never be seen in it the way it is now and if we wait till it comes around in fashion again we’ll all be gone. I don’t see making a museum of the attic. Nobody ever goes up there! If it can be of any use to you now, why, consider it Great-Grandmother Sherrill’s contribution. It goes with the name, don’t you see?”

Sherrill considered this breathtaking suggestion a moment.

“But perhaps it isn’t good enough!” said Grandmother Sherrill. “Perhaps they’d make fun of it in New York. Don’t, for pity’s sake, take it, if you don’t want it.”

“Oh, I think it will be wonderful!” said Sherrill. “I think it is a good deal like that wonderful metal blouse Margery brought home from Chicago with her, only ten times more lovely. I’ll ask Aunt Harry. She’ll know.”

“Yes, ask her!” said Grandmother Sherrill. “Don’t get any ancestral elephants on your hands, for pity’s sake.”

So Sherrill went up in the attic and came down with her arms full of quaint garments, satins, and brocades, and one fine rose pink taffeta, soft and lovely as the dew on a rose, with a big bertha of fine old lace yellowed with age. There were kerchiefs and under sleeves of old hand embroidery, sweet with lavender—a few lovely hand-wrought collars, and several yards of real Valenciennes, on undergarments of antique cut.

“They’re wonderful!” said Sherrill with her eyes shining. “If you really think I ought to use them!”

“Of course, you’ll use them!” said Grandma Sherrill, fingering the silk and giving the lace a firm little tug to see if it was rotten.

Then Sherrill went upstairs to the second floor and foraged out some of her own last winter’s dresses, with bundles of pieces like them, and brought those down. The sitting room looked in complete disarray.

Mother came to examine and unroll the pieces, rejecting some and laying others aside for possible use.

By the time Keith came home the excitement was on.

“Well, she’s going!” announced Grandmother with a twinkle.

“That’s the girl! I knew she would!” said the elder brother. “What’s all this, you aren’t packing already?” he asked, as he looked around on the laden chairs and couch.

They all tried to explain at once how they had found that material could be used and made over without purchasing new frocks, and how generous Aunt Harry had been.

Keith went around genially, looking at everything they showed him and beaming on them all, and presently he went up to his room and came down in a few minutes with a check.

“There’s a starter,” he said. “I’ll be able to give you more later, kid. But that’ll buy a few shoes and things. You can’t make over shoes.”

The check was for a hundred dollars, and Sherrill knew that meant Keith would wait that much longer for the car he was hoping to purchase soon, which he really needed in his business. She flung her arms around his neck and nearly strangled him,

“Oh, Keith,” she cried, with tears in her eyes, “I feel like a pig, going away from all you dear, dear people, and taking everything you’ve got with me! I don’t need all this, really I don’t, buddy!”

“That! Why that’s not much! That’s only a drop in the bucket. Wait till I get rich. You’ll see what I’ll do for you then.”

“Well, wait till I make this clever marriage Aunt Eloise is planning for me to pull off”—laughed Sherrill—”then I’ll be off your hands and you can roll in wealth!”

He caught her and gave her a great bear hug.

“If I thought you’d do that, kid, I wouldn’t let you go,” he said in mock seriousness. “I don’t want any New York brothers-in-law. I want a real one from the country!”

So they joked and laughed, and kidded one another, but all knew that tears were very near the surface, because each felt that even a temporary break like this in the family was going to be a trial. They were a family closely knit together in love for one another, especially since the death of the beloved father, and kept closer than ever to one another.

Nobody felt much like eating that night when they all sat down to the evening meal, and they lingered so long over it that Alan MacFarland came after Sherrill to go the young people’s church social before she had even started to get ready to go.

“What’s all the excitement?” he asked, looking around on the group that, next to his own family, had been his closest familiars through childhood.

“Why, Sherrill’s going to New York!” announced Grandma, with keen, quick eyes searching the fervid young face before her. Grandma liked to tell the news and then watch the result and reaction.

“Going to New York!” echoed Alan blankly, and then Sherrill looked up and realized that there was another unknown quantity to be reckoned with. Next to Keith, Alan had been Sherrill’s closest comrade and pal. “What are you going to New York for, Sherrill?”

“To make a clever marriage!” announced Sherrill wickedly. “At least that is what my unbeloved aunt is expecting me to pull off.”

Alan had a stricken look.

“Why, you’re only a kid, Sherrill Washburn!”

“I’m nineteen!” said Sherrill lightly. “It has been done even younger than that, you know,” she babbled giddily, trying to hide the pleasure in her own heart that Alan looked so miserable.

“That’s all right, Alan,” chimed in Keith with a twinkle. “If we don’t like her choice, we’ll wring his neck, won’t we, kid?”

Alan tried to grin, but the stricken look remained, and he said little, though his tongue was usually glib enough with repartee and nonsense.

“No kidding. Is that straight?” he said, looking at Keith.

“The straight of it is that Sherrill has had an invitation to spend the winter with her uncle in New York, and we think she ought to go,” answered the elder brother firmly. “It’s an opportunity, of course, and she ought not to miss it. Don’t you think that’s right, Alan?”

“Sure, s’pose it is,” said Alan gamely, “but meanwhile, what’s to become of the young people’s society and all the plans for winter without our new president, I’d like to know?”

And now the stricken look appeared on Sherrill’s face, for the work they had planned to do was very dear to her heart also.

“It’s probably your opportunity to take her place, kid,” said Keith. “You’re first vice president, aren’t you? Besides, the winter won’t last forever.”

“It’s certain it’ll never come this way again.” Alan grinned. “Not for this one anyhow. But, of course, we don’t want to stand in Sherry’s way if she wants to go out among ‘em.”

“Well, she’s not so keen on it, son, as she ought to be,” said Keith with a warning glance at the boy. “It’s up to you to encourage her. See?”

So Alan set his lips firmly.

“I see,” said Alan. “Make me the goat, you mean? All right, I’ll think it over. All set, Sherry?”

“All set, Alan!”

“He’s going to feel her going,” said Grandma when they were gone.

“Nonsense! Mother! You’re always so romantic. They are just good friends. They are only children yet, you know.”

“Well, he’s a nice
child,
anyway,” said Grandma with a speck of a sigh. “She won’t find many in the city cleverer than he is either.”

“He’s been a very pleasant comrade,” said her daughter firmly. “I hope Sherrill won’t think of anything deeper than that for some time to come. But, of course, Alan is a good boy.”

“Yes, Alan’s all right!” said Keith, rising to go back to his office for the evening. “But don’t worry about him, Gran. Alan won’t waste away for one winter of separation. His head is set on straight and he’s the right stuff. It won’t do him a bit of harm to be a little lonely for once. Well, good night, don’t sit up too late thinking of frills for Sherrill. I’m glad she’s going, for it’s just something she needed. It isn’t right for her to grow up knowing just Rockland.”

Out in the moonlight, Alan and Sherrill were walking along together, talking about the committee they were both on and the plans for the evening.

Suddenly a silence fell upon them, and then Alan broke it with a strange, troubled sound to his voice. “Say, Sherrill, what’s all this swell marriage you’re talking about? What’s the idea?”

Sherrill laughed. “Oh, that’s a joke. Didn’t Keith tell you?”

“You heard all he told me,” said Alan gravely.

“For pity’s sake, don’t take it seriously, Alan,” chided Sherrill. “It’s only fun. It was that aunt of mine, the one I don’t like, Aunt Eloise. She is always saying something disagreeable. She wrote that if I were clever, I might make a good marriage while I was up there. Get me off the family hands, you know, and all that.” Sherrill laughed. “Imagine me!”

But Alan did not laugh. “Well,” he said glumly, “it’s what’s to be expected, of course, when you go away like that for the whole winter.”

“Alan MacFarland,” said Sherrill, stopping short on the sidewalk, “if you talk like that I’m going straight back home. I never expected
you
to speak
that way
! I thought you were my friend and understood me. I thought you had a sense of humor!”

There were almost tears in Sherrill’s eyes.

Alan put out a hand gravely and just touched the tip of Sherrill’s elbow protectingly, as if he were years older than she, though, in fact, he was but seven months older.

“There’s usually some kind of truth behind all jokes,” he said seriously. “I just didn’t like the idea, that’s all. It means—well—sort of the end—you know.”

“The end of what?” Sherrill asked sharply.

“Well, the end of this. Sherrill, you know we’ve been friends for a long time.”

Sherrill stopped again and whirled toward him, half indignant, half amused.

“Now, look here, Alan. You’ve simply got to stop this ridiculous nonsense,” she said earnestly. “I never saw you act so foolish in all my life. I thought you had more sense. Why, Alan MacFarland, I’m just a kid yet. You said so yourself only a few minutes ago. I haven’t an idea of getting married for ages yet.”

“Corinne Arliss was only sixteen when she was married.”

“Well, I like that! If you want to class me with Corinne Arliss, I’m done. Do you think my mother brought me up to run away, just out of the cradle, with a lazy, sporty boy like Sam Howe?”

“Well, you needn’t get angry with me, Sherry,” said the boy disconsolately. “It’s only that it sort of seems like the end of things to have you go away like this for a whole winter, and just when we’d planned all these things! And then to have you talk about making a clever match—it seems as if you’d suddenly grown up—that’s all.”

“You make me very cross!” said Sherrill. “For just one word more and I’ll stay home! Do you think I
want
to go away? I’ve been holding off for a week saying I wouldn’t go, till the family made such a fuss I had to give in. Keith was the worst. He thinks my father would have wanted me to go. My uncle is his only brother, you know, and they were very close to one another. Besides, Keith thinks I owe it to Father to go.”

“I suppose you do,” said Alan gloomily. “Forget it, Sherry. I’m an old grouch. Of course you must go, only it’s going to be tough sledding without you.”

“Oh well,” said Sherrill cheerfully, “a winter won’t take long to pass. It will be like the time you went to Canada with your father. It didn’t last forever, you know, although it did seem pretty long while it was going on, I’ll admit.”

“All right,” said Alan with a deep breath, trying to put on a cheery atmosphere, “here goes! I’m game. But what are we going to do for a president for our society?”

“Not anything,” said Sherrill. “I’m not moving away. I expect to return before the year is up. A winter is over in the spring, remember, and if you ask me, I’ll tell you it’ll be a remarkably early spring this year if I have anything to say about it.”

“But what do you mean? We can’t get along all winter without some head, can we?”

“Well, aren’t you vice president? Isn’t that what a vice president is for, to take the place of president? You are dumb, Alan, my dear. Come to think of it, that is just one more reason why I should go, to give you your rightful place in this society. You wouldn’t take the office of president, though it has been offered to you three times to my certain knowledge, so now you are having it thrust upon you.”

She flung a triumphant smile at him through the darkness, and Alan grinned back.

“I only said no because I wanted you to be president,” he growled.

“Didn’t I know it, Alan MacFarland! Serves you right then. You’re a peach, of course, but you’re like an open book to me. And, of course, you know that the only reason I consented was because I could make you tell me how to run things right, so your everlasting modesty wouldn’t seal your mouth and keep the society from having the benefit of your wisdom.”