"IF I WERE ONLY YOU!"
The third Saturday and Sunday before the ending of term, Dorothea spent
with her "intimate" friend, Alma Montague.
Alma's home was a very beautiful one at Elizabeth Bay, and, as Dot told
her mother, there were parlour-maid, housemaid, kitchen-maid and every
other sort of maid there.
Dot slept in one of the visitor's rooms, and had a bathroom and a
sitting-room opening off her bedroom for her exclusive use. The
sitting-room and bedroom were "treated" with the same colouring--a
tender wonderful shade of blue. The wall paper was just suggestive of
blue; the ceiling was delicately veined with blue; the curtains were,
Dot felt certain, blue. The easy chairs and the lounge, the footstools
and the cushions were dull blue.
Such a beautiful room.
Again, in the bedroom, there were delicate suggestions of blue among the
whiteness.
And the bathroom! How different in every way from the little wooden
unlined room at home. There the ceiling-joists were gracefully festooned
with cobwebs, the floor had many a great hole in it, caused by white ant
and damp. No water was laid on--only a tap came from a tank outside,
which in its turn was fed from an underground well. And whenever Dot
wanted a bath she had to coax or bribe Cyril or Betty to work the pump.
Dot herself hated working the pump--it blistered her little hands.
Here the floor was leaded the walls tiled, the bath itself painted a
delicate sea blue. There was a square of carpet just beyond the edge of
the lead; a cushioned chair, two hospitable taps, one offering cold, one
hot water. All sorts of toilet luxuries were at hand, pretty coloured
soaps, loofahs, lavender-water, ammonia, violet powder, violet scent.
No wonder poor Dot was in an ecstasy with her surroundings, and that she
roamed round her rooms and sighed with happiness because she was here,
and with sorrow because she was going away in two days.
On Saturday morning she and Alma went shopping. They breakfasted alone
at nine o'clock, Alma's father being in his consulting-room and her
mother in bed (she had been at the theatre on Friday evening and Dot had
not even seen her).
So the two girls lingered over a very dainty breakfast table till nearly
ten o'clock, when Alma suggested "shopping."
Dot had only two frocks, besides her morning pink print with her. One
was a blue muslin that had to last her for next week at school; the
other was a white muslin and her best. She had taken them out of her
dress-basket and hung them carefully in her pretty wardrobe, and now
that Alma spoke of shopping she was in miserable doubt which to wear.
"I'm going to wear a blue," said Alma, "you wear yours, too, Thea dear,
and then people will think we are sisters. Sisters! Oh, don't I wish I
had a sister!"
Dot, who possessed three, shook her head as she handled her muslin
dress.
"I think it's very nice to be the only one," she said. "The only child!
It's lovely!"
"But I'm so lonely except when I'm at school," said Alma sadly.
Dot opened her eyes. She was just slipping her blue frock carefully over
her shining curly head, but she stopped with her head half through to
wonder at Alma.
"Lonely!" she said. "Here! In this house! And you've got your father and
mother!"
Alma shook her head dolefully.
"Father is always busy," she said, "and mother is always out--or
entertaining. Oh, Thea, I would love to have you for my very own sister.
I would give everything I have if I could have you."
Dorothea smiled kindly. Mona Parbury had told her the same--and Minnie
Stevenson, and Nellie Harden. They all wanted her for their _very_ own
sister. It was only such little madcaps as her own sisters, Betty and
Nancy, who were indifferent.
Alma was small and undeveloped. She was seventeen and looked hardly
fifteen. Her large dark eyes looked pathetic in her thin sallow face.
Her lips were thin and colourless, her hair straight and dull brown. No
prettiness at all belonged to her. Only wistfulness and gentleness.
So they went shopping together, the two little girls in blue. And they
had no chaperon at all with them, no schoolmistress, or governess, or
mother, or aunt--no one to direct their eyes where they should look, and
their smiles when they should be given out and when withheld. No one to
carry the purse.
Dot had two shillings and sixpence halfpenny in her small worn purse.
Her mother had slipped the money in. "I can't bear for you to be without
money, Dot dear," she had said, "but try your best not to spend it."
Alma's purse seemed full of half-crowns and shillings and sixpences!
Dot bought herself a new hat-band and a pretty lace-trimmed
handkerchief; and she tried to hide from Alma how very little both had
cost.
Alma made several peculiar mistakes in her purchases. For instance, she
bought just twice as much gold liberty silk as she would need for a
sash, and she had to beg Dot to accept the part that was too much, as
she would be so tired of the thing if she had two _just_ alike. And she
bought a pair of size two evening shoes, and remembered when they were
going home that size two was a size too big for her. She wished she knew
of any one who wore two's. Dot wore three's, didn't she? No?--two's! How
lovely! Then Dot would take the shoes, wouldn't she, and save them from
becoming mouldy! And she bought two pretty lace-trimmed collars, just
alike--and she hated two of her things to be alike. So Dot would take
one off her hands, wouldn't she?
Only each time she said "Thea," or "Thea darling!" And she bought her a
silver "wish" bangle as a keepsake, and a little scent bottle and fan
for "remembrance."
Before they went home they went into an arcade shop and had strawberries
and cream, and a big ice cream and sponge cake each. And they met
several straw-hatted youths to whom Alma bowed.
She told Dot to count how many hats were taken off to her, and Dot
counted, and behold, the number was ten.
Dot herself felt rather envious. She only knew one grammar-school boy,
who smiled from ear to ear and blushed with delight on seeing her.
Then they went home.
When they opened the dining-room door the table was set for luncheon,
and a bald-headed gentleman was waiting at the head of it, a book
propped up before him.
When the girls came in he went on reading just as before, deaf to their
chatter, blind to the pretty blue of their dresses.
Alma ran down the room to him, and kissed the top of his head.
"Home again, father!" she said.
And then he looked up smiling, and stroked her little sallow face with
one finger.
"This is my _very_ dearest friend--Dorothea Bruce!" said Alma
delightedly, and drawing Dot forward.
The great doctor, who was small in stature, stood up then and took
little Dot's hand in his, and a very kindly smile came to his eyes as he
looked into her lovely childish face.
"I'm very glad to see my daughter's dearest friend," he said, and he
patted her soft pink cheeks also.
The door opened again just as this introduction was over, and a new
nervousness attacked Alma. Another tinge of yellowness crept into her
skin, her eyes grew wistful, and she began to stammer.
"My f-friend, mother--Thea--Dorothea Bruce," and Dot turned curiously
and shyly round to the door. Entering there was a very beautiful woman
in a tea gown. Her eyes were like Alma's, only far lovelier, her
complexion was only a few years less fresh and perfect than Dorothea's
own--and her hair was red-gold and beautiful.
When her glance rested on Dorothea's face, a look of pleasure crept
into them--just pleasure at seeing any one so flower-like and sweet as
this little maid from school.
"I am very pleased to see you, dear," she said graciously, and she
stooped forward and kissed the girl's cheek.
Then she looked at Alma--poor undersized Alma, with her yellow skin and
bloodless lips--and she sighed. But she kissed her also, and asked how
she had spent her morning and whether she had come from school this
morning or yesterday afternoon.
When luncheon became the order of the day conversation died out. Dr.
Montague, indeed made two or three attempts at light talk--but Dot was
shy and Alma was nervous and Mrs. Montague was apparently elsewhere in
thought, so that presently silence fell.
Dinner was at seven that night. It was a meal of many courses, several
wines two servants, and finger glasses. And again Dot was perfectly if
silently happy--although the finger glasses (of which she had seen none
before) threw, her off her balance until she had stolen a glance at
Alma to "see how she did," whereupon Dot performed the operation with
infinitely more grace than Alma.
Alma wore a white silk dress and gold sash, and Dorothea white muslin
and gold sash, and the doctor's eyes went from one little whitely clad
maid to the other, smilingly.
The happy look on his small daughter's face pleased him greatly.
His wife often said he neither saw nor heard what was going on around
him, but he had very soon discovered his little girl's supreme
contentment.
He asked Dorothea if she were going away for Christmas and the holidays,
and Dorothea shook her golden head and said, "No; she was going to stay
at home."
Whereupon he asked Alma if she wouldn't like to carry her "dearest
friend" up the mountains with her, and Alma went quite pink with delight
and said--
"Oh, Father! Oh, Thea _dear_!"
And Dot raised her pretty shy eyes and said--
"Oh, Alma!" and then looked at Mrs. Montague as if to ask if such
happiness was possible.
Mrs. Montague laughed.
"I will write and ask your mother," she said, "but we really can't take
'no.'" And she said it so graciously that the tears came into Alma's
eyes.
"It would be _too_ lovely!" said Dot breathlessly.
On Sunday afternoon, just as the evening shadows were stealing out and
the daylight was growing grey, Alma ran into the little blue
sitting-room, her great eyes luminous.
"Oh, Thea _darling!_" she said, and then she stopped in surprise. Only a
little while ago Dot had tripped upstairs, her hair in a golden plait
down her back, her dress not so low as her boot-tops by quite three
inches.
And now! She was sitting in an easy chair, her dress skirt lowered till
it reached the floor, her hair loosely done up on the top of her head,
her blue, blue eyes staring through the windows to the darkening
harbour waters, afar off.
She blushed rosily red when Alma ran in.
"I--I was just thinking," she said.
"What were you thinking of, Thea?" asked Alma, "and what have you done
your hair like this for? You _do_ look so pretty--I wish the girls could
see you."
Dot pulled her friend towards her and patted the arm of her chair for
her to sit there. Then she leaned her head upon Alma's shoulder and held
one of her hands between her own two.
"I was _wishing_ I were grown-up, really grown-up," she said; "I did my
hair up to see how I looked. I tried to do it like your mother does
hers."
Alma stroked her head gently.
"My mother is in love with you," she said. "She has just been saying all
sorts of _beautiful_ things about you. She says she wishes you were her
daughter."
"Oh!" said Dot. "Her daughter! How I _wish_ I were!"--and no disloyalty
to her own mother was meant. "To live here always! To be rich! To----"
She paused. "Oh, Alma," she added, "you _are_ a lucky girl."
But Alma only sighed.
Dot began to think again, comparing in her own mind this home of Alma's
with her own little bush home.
"Oh!" she said at last; "How happy you ought to be. How would you like
to change places with me!"
And to her surprise Alma burst into tears, covering her face with her
little trembling hands.
Gentle ways belonged to Dorothea.
She stood up and put her friend into her chair and then she knelt beside
her, and slipped her arm round her waist.
"_Dearest_ Alma!" she whispered.
"Oh," sobbed Alma, "if only you were my _very_ own sister Thea--I
_couldn't_ love you more. I'm _so_ lonely. Father is always busy, and
mother--mother is disappointed in me."
Dot opened her eyes in surprise. She had never dreamed of a mother being
_disappointed_ in her child.
"I'm not pretty--or clever--or _any_thing," sobbed Alma. "She's always
been disappointed in me--ever since I was a tiny baby--and I've always
known it--and--and--she doesn't know I know. Oh dear!"
Dot was shocked. "Darling Alma!" she said again.
"It's dreadful to be the only child--and to be a disappointment," said
Alma. "I think father is sorry for us both."
Dot stroked the girl's straight hair.
"You've got lovely eyes," she said, "and you're very clever at crotchet
work."
"What's that!" said Alma drearily. "Mother wouldn't mind if I never
touched a needle. She says if a girl hasn't beauty she has only one
other chance in the world--and that is to be brilliant. I _do_ try to be
clever--but it's no good."
Dot kissed her.
"When you are grown up you'll look different," she said. "You'll wear
long trailing dresses--and--do your hair like this--and----"
But Alma sprang to her feet.
"What a croaker I am," she said. "I _never_ told this to any one
before. Thea--it is my very _biggest_ secret. You'll never tell any one,
will you? Never! never! Father says if I'm good I'll be beautiful enough
for _him_. But oh, I wish I were you!"
"And _I've_ been wishing I were you," said Dot.
"I suppose," said Alma, with one of her most wistful looks, "I suppose
we're _meant_ to be ourselves for some reason. And we must make the best
of ourselves just as we are!"
And the two girls kissed each other tenderly.
"I've to be an elder sister," said Dot, with a sudden thought towards
Mona Parbury.
"And I've to be an only child," said Alma, "and we've both to make the
best of our state of life--eh?"