Unless she meant to clear away her breakfast dishes herself, her
first duty was to send for Bella Greenup. She turned her back on both
telephone and dishes, however, and ran up the stairs and into her
room. It might be supposed that she intended to begin the day’s work
by making her bed; but she spared not a glance for its crumpled state.
Some secret purpose, brought to definite shape as the carriage had
disappeared, possessed and thrilled her.
There was a window seat formed by a huge, carved rosewood chest.
Rosamond dropped on her knees before it and began to search through
the layers of coloured frou-frous which were neatly sandwiched between
pieces of smooth, white linen. Pink muslin bags containing dried rose
leaves, and bunches of dried lavender blossoms woven together in loose
checker pattern by lavender and white baby ribbons, were tossed among
the rainbow flounces of a profuse wardrobe.
She rose presently with billows of perfumed satins and lace flowing
over her arm. Her cheeks were rosy not only from her exertions but from
the excitement that stirred her small round bosom, and also kindled
her eyes till they glowed like the blue sparks of a driftwood fire.
She skimmed across the dull-polished dark oak floor to the mirror.
This latter was the one bright article among the sombre furnishings of
the room. It was a huge thing with an ornate gold-enamelled frame that
finished in a top of turrets, flower-twined trellises, and one-stepping
cupids. It reflected the room for Rosamond in fan-shape, with herself
the Watteau figure in the fan’s centre.
As she unfastened the top button of the black-sprayed lavender gown
she began to hum a little song. They were tiny cut jet buttons, and
no doubt suggested to her that time could be saved and the adventure
hastened by a good pull. Two sharp tugs ripped them all out of the
button-holes; but two of the jet balls had shot, like stray bullets,
into the unknown, ere the hated garment reached the middle of the room,
having been propelled thereto by the farmer’s daughter’s toe.
The gown she selected in its place was of soft satin, thin and sheer
as silk, and of a lilac hue. The skirt, made in two panniers and short
round train, draped over an Irish lace petticoat. The round-necked
bodice and short, close-fitting sleeves were of the lace. From the
front of the girdle, silk folds went over the shoulders and hung in
sash-ends at the back. It was a frock of costly simplicity, witnessing
that the departed collector of curios, antiques, and _objets d’art_ had
been no niggard in the matter of supplying appropriate cases for his
purchases.
The other gown, shimmering and smelling of pink roses and trailing
with silver gossamer, she shook out and hung upon the high back of
some medieval Louis’ chair and draped it with linen to protect it from
dust. Presently she returned to the mirror to survey, at her delightful
leisure, a sight that would have caused His Friggets to swoon with
apprehension, so boldly did it register new claims on life and on
youth’s inalienable right to inspire love.
The figure reflected was not diminutive. Without being tall, there
was height enough, one would say, to insure the eyes a good view of
golden horizons and near heavens, and the arms an easy reach to the
honeysuckle clusters or the ripe purple plum hanging low by its own
weight. The lines were long and not fragile but well knit at knee and
thigh, at shoulders and supple waist; the curves were not less sturdy
than graceful and sinuous, like the outlines of a young, white, birch
tree, where poetic beauty harmonizes with limber, enduring strength.
The tenuousness of high breeding, which His Friggets so admired, was
wholly absent from Rosamond’s body. The well-made feet looked equal
to miles of meadow running; and the finely rounded, firm, white arms
would not tire under the pressure of market baskets. Yet there was a
daintiness about her--in her postures and her movements, in the set of
her throat and of the chin raised to thrust her eager face a little
forward--but it was the daintiness of the field, not of the hothouse.
Both _La France_ and the wild rose are roses; both permeate their
worlds with fragrance and are something alike in colour, but no one
would compare or contrast them for purposes of criticism. One, the
product of selection, is the aristocrat of horticulture. The other is
the queen of rusticdom, as unspoiled as she is undisputed in her sway,
the passing centuries of garden fancies and fads having influenced her
not at all. She is not the less lovely because she is sturdy and able
to bear wind and weather.
Rosamond Mearely, _née_ Cort--like the wild rose--proclaimed that the
cottager’s environs, and not lordly estates, were her native ground.
She was a willing little daughter of the earth, with the earth’s
promise in her; and her halesome, country-bred beauty challenged with a
frank admission that it would have shone as radiantly in a sun-bonnet,
patched gingham apron, and bare feet. This, despite its present
wrappings of Lyons silk and Limerick lace and its background of some
ancient, royal reprobate’s furniture; and also despite the fact that
the mirror which imaged the eager, wistful face under its bright hair
had once reflected (so ’twas said) the coronets and the _hauteur_ of
the princesses of the House of Orleans.
A joyous flush tinted her satiny skin which was innocent of even the
knowledge of powder. Thoughts of freedom came to her and made her
breath stir quickly. They promised her things vague and splendid and
she felt a flutter about her heart like the wings of birds waking for
the morning flight. She was beautiful, she was rich, she was young; and
for one whole day, at least, she was her own mistress. A laugh rippled
through the sombre old curio shop of a bedroom. She swept herself a
curtsy and called gleefully to the contented-looking apparition in the
mirror:
“Good-morning, Rosamond!”
She fairly danced down the stairs.
[Illustration]