Chance of a Lifetime (20 page)

“Oh no,” said Sherrill in a new panic, “please have it brought right here. I would rather unpack it myself, if you don’t mind. I know how things are, you know”—and she smiled pleasantly. “But thank you just the same.”

The maid looked doubtfully at her, opened her lips as if to speak, then glanced at the lovely fur coat that Sherrill was taking off, and closed her lips again. Finally she said, “Well, Madam thought you would want your trunk to go direct to the store room. But if you prefer, of course.”

“Yes, I do, please,” said Sherrill firmly.

When she was alone, instead of taking off her hat and following the directions for rest that she had been given, Sherrill stood looking out her window, with troubled, unseeing eyes, trying to think what all this meant. How strange for her aunt not to greet her. She must not let her mother and Keith know how she had been received. Especially, she must not let Grandma know. She would feel it keenly.

Then suddenly she whirled about and knelt down by a chair.

“Oh, my dear heavenly Father, help me not to misjudge. Help me to be strong and sweet and go through this trial that You have given me, for Christ’s sake.”

Then she came back to the window and tried to interest herself in the small vision of the new city that she could get from these back upper windows. Were those great masts over there, far beyond the buildings, or were they steeples?

A tap on the door put an end to her investigations, and she opened it to find the maid with a tray, containing tea and tiny sandwiches and cakes.

“Oh, you needn’t have troubled to do that,” said Sherrill and then realized that was the wrong thing to say. Probably tea was a regular meal in this house. She must take things as they came, as a matter of course. That was what Harriet Masters had said, and she knew it.

It was six o’clock before Sherrill’s trunk came, but she had lain down for a few minutes and felt quite rested. She had thought out the matter of clothes, comparing as much as she knew of the occasion with Harriet Masters’ rules, and decided that the blue taffeta was the right thing to wear tonight.

She laid out the things she would need for the evening, hung her dresses in the closet, put some of her other things in the drawers of the bureau and her hats on the closet shelf. It did not take her long. Somehow she did not linger over the process as she had expected to do when she laid those pretty garments away in the trunk. She had, in spite of her prejudices, pictured an eager cousin hovering near and admiring, and she was chagrined to find how much difference it made to her that no one was near to see what pretty things she had. Real Paris clothes and copies of them, and no one to know it. Well, it served her right for caring so much about clothes! Anyway, she would just enjoy them and forget that they were anything different from what she might have always had.

She was just about to don her dress when the maid came to the door and tapped.

“Madam says she is ready for you now,” she announced, “and you will please not put on a frock. Just wear a robe. She is wanting you to try on something.”

A flush came into Sherrill’s face and she was about to rebel at the order, when she remembered her prayer to be kept sweet and do the right thing, and she closed her lips and tried to be pleasant. Well, at least she had a pretty robe and lovely lingerie. She swept the bright folds of silk about her and rejoiced in the embroidered butterflies. They looked pretty with the silver shoes and stockings she had put on.

So she walked down the hall to the front of the house and waited while the maid tapped at her mistress’ door. How funny this was to greet her relative first in a robe—a pretty robe, anyway!

Mrs. Washburn lay in her bed, draped in a negligee of lace and orchid silk, with her face swathed in hot cloths, which the attendant from time to time changed. There was no opportunity for Sherrill to give the sacrificial kiss, which she had earnestly resolved upon after many soul struggles.

“So, this is Sherrill, is it?” said a sharp, thin voice, pitched high and emanating from the steaming towels. “Well, I’m glad you came on time. I had to substitute you as a dinner guest for a friend I had visiting me, who was suddenly called home by a death in the family. So annoying. But there isn’t much time, so we’ll have to get to work. I’ve got a dress here that might fit you. If it doesn’t, the maid knows how to take it up. Suppose you put it on right away. Where did you get that robe? Is that something Carol has been buying again on my charge account? If it is, it will simply have to go back. I can’t have her doing that when she has an account of her own. Come over nearer so I can see it. What are those? Butterflies? It really is stunning! I can’t say I blame her much. Perhaps I’ll keep it for myself. Did she tell you you could borrow it?

“What? This?” asked Sherrill, following the direction of the glance that came from between the hot towels. “Oh no, this is mine. It is pretty, isn’t it?”

“But it looks like an important thing,” said the aunt in her superior tone. “Where on earth could you have got it?”

“Yes,” said Sherrill, “it came from Paris. A friend of Mother’s brought it to me a few days ago.”

“You don’t say!” said the aunt thoughtfully. “A friend of your mothers. I didn’t suppose she had friends who traveled abroad.”

Sherrill’s color rose, and she drew a deep breath. This was the thing to expect from Aunt Eloise, of course, but it was very maddening. She must be careful.

She gathered the lovely folds about her and said nothing.

“Well, we’d better get to work. There isn’t much time, especially if the dress has to be altered. Take off your negligee, and anything you have under. This dress has garments that go especially with it. You can go behind that screen; Maida will dress you.”

Sherrill stood hesitantly, eyeing the maid, over whose arm was slung billows of bright green silk and Malines silk, and then looking toward the swathed face on the pillow.

“I don’t think that will be necessary, Aunt Eloise,” she said, with a smile as sweet as if she were really grateful. “It is very kind of you, of course, but I have plenty of clothes with me.”

The woman on the bed waved an impatient hand.

“Don’t argue!” she said sharply. “I haven’t time to discuss the matter. I want that dress tried on at once. Afterward we’ll discuss it if there is time. Don’t begin to annoy me right at the start. It’s most annoying to have young people always objecting to things. Marie, this pack is getting cold. You’d better change it.”

“Oh, very well.” And Sherrill followed the maid behind the screen. She saw at once when she threw back her robe that her pretty lingerie commanded a respect of the woman. Nevertheless, she handed forth a tiny garment that she demanded should be substituted for the things Sherrill wore.

“Can’t I try on the dress over these?” asked Sherrill.

“You heard Madam say the under things went with the dress,” said the maid coldly.

So, much against her will, Sherrill put on the flimsy substitute, and when the maid flung the green dress over her head and she saw herself in the long pier mirror, it became immediately apparent to her why her own undergarments would not do, for her own white back gleamed at her from the mirror, free of covering.

Sherrill surveyed herself in dismay, saying nothing at first, simply marveling at the idea that any girl would be willing to go out into company so nearly naked as she looked to herself.

Also, her sense of humor, which was strong, rose and battered at her self-control. She wanted to laugh at herself in such array. She could not help picturing her mother’s and her grandmother’s faces if they could see her now. A bare back to the waist, with a long green tail of fluffy Malines and silk, and a front that was all too revealing for her sense of fineness. And what would the girls and boys of Rockland say if she should appear in a garment like this?

But while she was studying herself, trying to think what to say and how, gracefully, to decline the use of this most unsuitable dress, the maid moved a leaf of the screen back, and she stood revealed before her aunt.

“It couldn’t have fit better if it were made for her, Madam,” said the maid. “It’s just her size. There’ll not need to be a thing done to it.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” said the aunt, suddenly emerging from the towels and showing a steamed complexion, almost like a baby’s. “Put on a wrap and let her see how it’s to be worn, and then she’ll be fixed.”

Before Sherrill could object, Maida threw about her shoulders a long black wrap with a high fur collar.

“Stunning!” said the aunt, submitting to vigorous applications of ice wrapped in cheesecloth bags over her cheeks and chin and forehead and nose. “That’s that! Sherrill, you better go right downstairs and sit in the library to wait for us. Your uncle hates to be kept waiting, and it’s a relief to know you’re ready early enough. I shan’t be long. Thank fortune you have naturally good hair, and you seem to have arranged it becomingly. Slightly ingénue, but I guess it will have to do tonight because I simply can’t spare Marie now, and Maida will have to go down and dress Carol. Just go right down now. Those silver shoes look very well with the green. Are they the ones that came with the dress, Maida? Oh, her own? Well, they’re not so bad. Maida, you show her how to find the library. I’ll tell you on the way how to behave at the dinner, Sherrill. That’s all for now. I haven’t another minute.”

“But Aunt Eloise,” began Sherrill in dismay, “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I really would prefer to wear my own dress. I’m sure Mother would not like—”

“It makes no difference what your mother would like,” cut short the aunt. “She isn’t here, and she wouldn’t know what was proper if she were. You are under my care and advisement now, and you are in my house. I expect you to be properly dressed when you go out with me or any of my family. Understand? Now go!”

Mrs. Washburn arose haughtily from her elegant couch and stepped into the silken garment that the maid held out for her; Sherrill realized that she was dismissed.

In growing dismay she found herself following the maid down the hall. At the end of the stairs, the maid paused coldly and said, “You will find the library to the left of the stairs. You can’t miss it. I will put Mademoiselle’s garments in her room.”

Sherrill hesitated at the head of the stairs, looking after the woman as she disappeared into a door farther down the hall, then slowly walked down the stairs, trying to think what to do.

She heard the woman come out of her room a moment later and close the door to go down the back stairs. Instantly she turned and fled back up to her room, the green taffeta making an alarming rustle as she tried to go silently.

Once in her room she locked the door and went to the mirror. The girl who looked back at her over the fur collar seemed an alien somehow. The wrap, of course, was pretty, but far too rich and ornate for her idea of the way a young girl should be dressed. But the long, green, freakish tails hanging below filled her with distaste. With a quick motion she flung off the wrap and laid it on the chair beside her, and took another quick survey of herself, not omitting her bare, pink back. Then swiftly she began to disrobe, casting aside the borrowed garments and getting into her own, which Maida had left neatly folded on a chair.

Her own blue taffeta was lying on the bed where she had left it, and she put it on, thankful that its adjustment was the work of but a moment. She unfastened the gaudy costume jewelry that had been on her neck, and slid out of the bracelets, clasping on her own string of pearls that Alan had given her. Then she was ready, and her own eyes told her that she looked a great deal more becomingly garbed than in the borrowed clothes. But then, of course, it might make her aunt very angry. Still, she could not help that. She could not go out anywhere with her back exposed that way. Her whole family would have utterly disapproved, and upheld her in her course she knew, and her own soul loathed the idea of the other dress. She had not been brought up to feel comfortable in questionable clothes. Of course, these things were worn constantly in the world, she knew, and probably nobody else would even realize why she disliked them. But not even for peace and courtesy could she bring herself to go out among people dressed as her aunt had commanded.

She paused hesitantly and looked at the rich wrap lying on the bed. Should she put that on instead of her own coat, so that they would not discover what she had done until it was too late to make a fuss about it? Perhaps they would insist on waiting for her to go back and change into the green after all!

Well, let them. Then she could remain at home perhaps. But even if it did make a coldness between herself and her aunt, she felt she should take a stand at once about wearing her own clothes.

So she left the velvet wrap lying on the bed where she had flung it and got her own fur coat from the closet. If her beautiful squirrel coat was not good enough to go to anything, then she would stay home. Aunt Harriet had told her that it was perfectly proper, and if Harriet Masters didn’t know then nobody did.

So without more fuss, Sherrill put on her fur coat, got out her lovely blue chiffon scarf that came straight from Paris, and was ready. The whole performance of changing had not taken her ten minutes, and she felt sure that none of the family had gone downstairs as yet.

With her hand on the doorknob she paused, and quickly dropped to her knees. “Dear Father, help me through this hard place, and keep me and guide me every moment this evening, for Jesus’ sake”—she breathed and then went quickly downstairs to the library and sat down in a shadowed corner where she would not be much noticed if anyone came into the room, for there was only a single heavily shaded lamp burning. She was glad to sit back and close her eyes and just rest. She was more tired than she had realized, and she dreaded the evening inexpressibly. At that moment, if anyone had offered her quick transport back to Rockland, she would have accepted it eagerly.

She had a full half hour to sit in the big leather chair and wait, and time to calm her heart and think over what she had done. It began to look to her as if her stay in New York was going to be a stormy one, unless she was able right at the start to take a stand. Yet she found herself trembling in anticipation. Oh, why had she come?