BALM OF GILEAD
It was the worst possible moment for the dryads. But when their
tear-wet eyes beheld a girl and two men, some deep-down primordial
pride of womanhood rushed to their rescue and, flowing through their
veins, performed a miracle beyond the power of any patent remedy. The
five forlorn girls became at need the five stately goddesses Mme.
Nadine paid them to be. (Winifred Child, by the way, was not paid, for
she was not a goddess by profession. But she got her passage free. It
was for that she was goddessing.)
Miss Devereux was the leader, by virtue, not of extra age, no indeed!
but of height, manner, and experience. She apologized, with the most
refined accent, for Mme. Nadine, who was "quite prostrated"; for Mme.
Nadine's manageress, who was even worse; and for themselves. "I'm
afraid we must do the best we can alone," she finished with
unconscious pathos.
"It's a shame to disturb you," said Peter Rolls.
Miss Devereux and her attendant dryads turned their eyes to him. They
had fancied that he was the man who had burst in before and burst out
again; now they were sure. If he had been a woman, they would have
borne him a grudge for coming back and bringing companions worse than
himself; but as he was a man, young, and not bad looking, they forgave
him meekly.
They forgave the other man for the same reason, and forgave the girl
because she was with the men. If only they could behave themselves as
young ladies should through this ordeal! That was the effort on which
they must concentrate their minds and other organs.
"Not at all," returned Miss Devereux, every inch a princess. "We are
_here_ to be disturbed." (Alas, how true!)
She smiled at Lady Eileen, but not patronizingly, because a mysterious
instinct told her that the plain, pleasant young girl in Irish tweed
was a "swell." The men, too, were swells, or important in some way or
other. One exerted one's self to be charming to such people and to
keep the male members of the party from looking at the other girls.
"Would you like to see something else, different from what we are
showing? Evening cloaks? Day dresses? We have a number of smart little
afternoon frocks---"
"I think that white dress is the _meltingest_ thing I ever saw," said
Lady Eileen, who had walked into the room without waiting for Miss
Devereux's answer to Peter Rolls's objection.
She was a kind-hearted girl, but, after all, living models were living
models until they were dead, and she wasn't going to lose the chance
of getting a dreamy frock out of Rags! All the goddesses were on their
mettle and their feet now, though swaying like tall lilies in a high
wind and occasionally bracing themselves against mirrors, while Lady
Eileen was in the biggest chair, with Raygan and Peter Rolls standing
behind her. The men also were offered chairs by Miss Vedrine with a
lovely play of eyelashes, but refused them: the chairs, not the
eyelashes, which no man could have spurned, despite their scattered
effect.
"The white dress, _moddam?"_ (It thrills a flapper to be called
"_moddam_.") "It is one of the latest designs and considered perfect
for a débutante. No doubt you know it is Mme. Nadine's custom to name
her inspirations. Come here, if you please, Miss Child! This is 'First
Love.'"
"Looks like it," remarked Lord Raygan, as Miss Child obeyed. He might
have meant the wearer or the dress. Peter Rolls flashed a gimlet
glance his way to see which. He felt uncomfortably responsible for the
manners of the visitors and the feelings of the visited. But the face
of Rags was grave, and no offence could be taken. Peter Rolls withdrew
the glance, though not before Winifred Child had it intercepted and
interpreted.
"I believe he's a nice fellow," was the thought that slid through her
mind as, like a chicken on a spit, she turned and turned to let Lady
Eileen behold "First Love" from every point of view.
"Rippin', but a foot too tall for you," said Rags, more because it
amused him to prolong the scene than through a real desire to
criticise. "_You_ don't go in for bein' a sylph."
Another backhanded compliment for the wearer, if she cared to accept
it; but she was beautifully unconscious and, for once, not laughing.
Her eyes looked miles away. Peter Rolls wondered to what land she had
gone.
The girl appeared to be gazing over his head; but, as a matter of
fact, she could see him perfectly. He had black hair and blue eyes,
shrewd perhaps, yet they might be kind and merry; just now they looked
worried. She thought him not handsome, but tanned and thin (she
detested fat men) and somehow nice. Win wondered if she were taller
than he. She hated being taller than men, though she owed her present
engagement to her height and length of limb.
Miss Devereux respectfully argued that appearances were deceitful.
_Moddam_ was quite as sylphlike as the model. Might the dress be sent
to _moddam's_ cabin to try? Then it came out that _moddam_ was Lady
Eileen O'Neill, and the four tallest dryads visibly brightened, not so
much for the owner of the name as for her brother.
Their dull days had been dimly lightened by gossip on the ship,
brought to them by a stewardess from Lord Raygan's native isle, who
knew all about him: that he was an earl, that with his mother and
sister he had booked from Liverpool to Queenstown, but, owing to the
ferocity of the sea, had been unable to land and was being carried to
America. Also that a rich young American and his sister had given up
their suite to the ladies. This American was said to be of no birth,
the son of some big shopkeeper, and far, far outside even the fringe
of the Four Hundred; therefore the tallest dryads did their best
eyelash work for Lord Raygan. They were born British, hailing from
Brixton or other suburban health resorts, and now they knew he was a
"lord" the nickname of "Rags," which had sickened them at first,
seemed interesting and intimate as a domestic anecdote about royalty.
Rags consented to buy the dress for his sister if it fitted and didn't
cost a million pounds. The dryads thought this adorably generous, for
the stewardess, who knew all about Lord Raygan, said that the "family
had become impoverished; they were not what they had once been except
in name, which was of the best and oldest in Ireland." Stewardesses
can tell all the things that Marconi does not mention.
When the sale was settled Miss Devereux turned to Peter Rolls. "And
you, sir?" she asked, slightly coquettish because he was a man, though
not of the Four Hundred. "I suppose there's nothing we can do for
you?"
"I suppose not," Peter was echoing, when something occurred to him.
"Unless," he amended, "my sister would like to buy a dress. She's on
board."
"Would she care to look at Mme. Nadine's designs?" suggested Miss
Devereux. "We have wardrobes full of marvellous inspirations."
"The trouble is, she feels queer if she walks around much," said
Peter.
"Perhaps she would trust you to pick out something she might see in
her own room? Is she tall or short?"
"Not so tall as any of you."
"Things which would fit _this_ young lady would be the best, then.
Miss Child, Miss Vedrine will help you out of 'First Love' behind the
screen and put you into the 'Young Moon.' What"--_sotto voce_--"are
you laughing at _this_ time?"
"Nothing," said the smallest dryad meekly, though she gurgled under
her breath.
"We'd better go now, and I'll come back," hastily suggested Peter.
"Don't bother to change behind the screen for us, please. I must ask
my sister about the dress."
He got the others out, which was not difficult as far as Eileen was
concerned. She could hardly wait to try "First Love."
Rags was determined to ask Miss Rolls if he shouldn't choose a frock
for her. But she said no, she didn't want one. This would have seemed
to settle the matter, and did for Lord Raygan, who sat down beside
her, abandoning further thought of the dryads. Peter, however,
returned in due course to the room of the mirrors, because Miss Child
could not be allowed to get into the "Young Moon" in such weather for
nothing.
She was in it when he arrived. And pluck, mingled with excitement,
having had a truly bracing effect on the girls, in the absence of the
peer they were nice to the plebeian. The girl in the "Young Moon," to
be sure, had scarcely anything to say, but she had a peculiarly
fascinating way of not saying it.
By the time Mr. Rolls had bought the "Moon" for his sister, he had
become quite friendly with the other dryads, on the strength of a few
simple jokes about green cheese and blue moons and never having
dreamed he could obtain one by crying for it.
"I was wondering," he said at last, when he was about to go, "whether
you'd care for me to bring you some Balm of Gilead?"
"Balm of Gilead?" all five, even the girl in the "Moon," exclaimed.
"Yes. Stuff for seasickness. Not that you _are_ seasick of course. But
the balm's a good preventive. Did you never hear of it?"
They shook their heads.
"It's the great thing our side of the water. I don't need it myself,
but I know it's all right, because it's making my father a fortune."
"Did he invent it?" inquired Miss Carroll.
"No. But he named it and he sells it. It's the men who name things and
sell things, not the ones who invent them, that get the money. My
father is Peter Rolls, and I---"
"I hope you spell Rolls with an 'e,'" broke in Miss Vedrine. "Else it
would remind me of something I want to forget."
"Something you--But maybe I can guess! What the ship does now?"
"Don't speak of it!" they groaned.
"I won't! Or my name, either, if you'd rather not, especially as only
my sister spells it with an 'e.' I mentioned the name on account of
the balm. The barber has no end of bottles. I'll go and buy you one
now. It tastes good. Back in ten minutes." And he was gone.
"His father must be a chemist," sniffed Miss Devereux, as she unhooked
the "Young Moon."
When Peter returned Miss Child was wearing a robe like an illuminated
cobweb on a background of violets. This was the "Yielding Heart."
Peter had brought a bottle and a clean napkin and five teaspoons. "I
got these things off a dining-room steward," he explained.
"Sounds like a conjurer," murmured the girl who laughed.
"How rude of you!" Miss Devereux scolded in a whisper. "Don't mind
her, Mr. Rolls. She isn't a bit like the rest of us."
Peter had noticed that.
"She's always laughing at everything, and everybody, too," went on
Miss Devereux.
"She's welcome to laugh at me," said Peter. "I enjoy it."
"Ladies don't. She'd never do for a _permanence_ with Mme. Nadine.
Clients wouldn't stand being grinned at by models."
"I don't laugh at people. I laugh at the world," the model defended
herself.
"Why?" inquired Peter, with a straight look at the queer, arresting
face.
"To keep it from laughing at me first. And to make it laugh _with_
me--if I can."
"Do you think you can?"
"I shall try hard--against the biggest odds. And whatever it does to
me, I shan't _cry_."
"I shouldn't wonder if that wasn't the whole secret of life!" said
Peter Rolls, continuing to look at the face.
Suddenly it flashed a smile at him. "Shouldn't you? Give _me_ the Balm
of Gilead, and the rest would be easy!"
Peter was not stupid as a rule, yet he could not be quite sure what
she meant. If he guessed right, the rest wasn't as easy as she
thought. Yet the words made him wish that he could give the girl who
laughed--the girl who was not to be a "permanence" with Nadine--more
than a teaspoonful of balm.