A DISTURBED HOSTESS
Unfortunately for Berty, a woman across the street chose the hour of
seven o’clock to have a fit of hysterics. Nothing would satisfy her
perturbed relatives but a visit from “Madam,” as Grandma was known to
the street.
Half-past seven came, and no Mayor. Selina Everest, tall, pale, and
lilylike, in white and green, arrived soon after, then came Margaretta
and Roger, and then, to Berty’s dismay, appeared Tom Everest, dropping
in as if he expected to find her alone.
Berty said nothing, but her face grew pinker. Then she swept them all
out to the semi-darkness of the veranda. The Mayor should not step into
that brightly lighted room and find them all there.
Wedged comfortably on the veranda, and talking over mutual friends,
Margaretta, Selina, and Tom were having a charming time. Roger, seated
by the glass door, was restless, and kept moving in and out the
dining-room.
Berty was like a bird, perching here and there, and running at
intervals to the front windows, ostensibly to watch for her
grandmother, in reality to seize upon the Mayor at the earliest moment
of his arrival.
Margaretta and Selina were in a corner of the veranda. Tom was nearest
the dining-room, and presently there was a whisper in his ear. “Jimson
has arrived--hot--mad--explanatory--detained--Berty condoling.”
Not a muscle of Tom’s face moved, and Roger, turning on his heel,
departed.
Presently he came back. “Berty frantic--Jimson has got on wrong kind of
necktie. She has corralled him behind piano.”
Poor Berty--she had indeed driven the unhappy late-comer behind the
upright piano in the parlour. “Oh, Mr. Jimson, how could you? That
necktie is a bright green!”
“Gr--green!” stuttered the discomfited man. “Why, I matched your
sample.”
“You’re colour blind!” exclaimed the girl, in despair. “Oh, what shall
we do--but your suit is lovely,” she added, as she saw the wilting
effect of her words upon him. “Come, quick, before any one sees,” and
she hurried him out into the hall. “Here, go in that corner while I get
one of my shirt-waist ties.”
Mr. Jimson, hot and perspiring, tried to obliterate himself against the
wall until she came back.
“Here is a pale blue tie,” said Berty. “Now stand before the glass in
that hat-rack,--give me that green thing. Selina Everest would have a
fit if she saw it.”
The Mayor hastily tore off the bit of brilliant grass-green silk, and,
seizing Berty’s blue satin, endeavoured to fasten it round his creaking
collar.
Roger peeped out through the dining-room door and went back to Tom, and
in a convulsion of wicked delight reported. “He’s titivating in the
hall--has got on one of Berty’s ties. Just creep out to see him.”
Tom could not resist, and seeing that Margaretta and his sister were
deep in the mysteries of coming fashions in dress, he tiptoed into the
dining-room.
Berty and the Mayor out in the hall were too much engaged with each
other to heed the peeping eyes at the crack of the dining-room door.
Mr. Jimson was in a rage, and was sputtering unintelligible words.
Berty, too, was getting excited. “If you say a naughty word,” she
threatened, “I’ll take that tie away from you, and you’ll have to go
home!”
The Mayor, wrathfully beating one foot up and down on the oilcloth, was
trying to make the tie tie itself.
“Hang it!” he said, at last, throwing it down, “the thing won’t go at
all. It was made for some woman’s neck. Give me that green thing.”
“You sha’n’t have it,” Berty flared up. “You will spoil yourself. Here,
let me have the blue one. I’ll fasten it for you, if you’ll never tell
any one I did it.”
Tom and Roger nearly exploded into unseemly merriment. The sight of the
unfortunate Jimson’s face, the mingled patience and wrath of Berty,
made them clap their hands over their mouths.
“There!” cried Berty, at last, “it’s tied. You men have no patience.
Look round now. Come softly into the dining-room and drink some
lemonade before I introduce you--no, stay here, I’ll bring it to you.
Smooth your hair on the left side.”
The unfortunate man, breathing heavily, stood like a statue, while Tom
and Roger tumbled over each other out to the veranda.
“What are you two laughing at?” asked Margaretta, suspiciously.
“At that black cloud there,” said Tom, pointing to the sky. “See it
dragging itself over the stars. I say, Stanisfield, doesn’t that cloud
strike you as being of a comical shape?”
“Very,” exclaimed Roger, with sudden laughter, “very comical. Trails
out just like a four-in-hand necktie.”
“Very like it,” echoed Tom; then they both laughed again.
In the midst of their merriment, a quiet, patient voice was heard
saying, “Margaretta, let me introduce Mr. Jimson to you,--and Miss
Everest, Mr. Jimson.”
Tom and Roger huddled aside like two naughty boys, and Berty, with the
Mayor behind her, stepped to the other end of the veranda.
Margaretta stretched out a slim, pretty hand. Miss Everest did
likewise, and the Mayor, breathing hard and fast, turned to the two
men. “I don’t need an introduction to you.”
“No,” they both said, shaking hands with a sudden and overwhelming
solemnity.
They all sat down, and an uninterrupted and uninteresting chatter
began. Every one but the Mayor was good-naturedly trying to make
Berty’s party a success, and every one was unconsciously defeating
this object by engaging in trifling and stupid small talk.
“We’re not having a bit of a good time,” said Berty, at last,
desperately. “Let’s go into the house.”
They all smiled, and followed her into the parlour. Here at least the
Mayor would be able to look at Miss Everest. Out on the veranda he
could not see her at all.
Quite unconscious of the others, he stared uninterruptedly at her. She
was apparently oblivious of him, and was again talking fashions to
Margaretta.
But Tom and Roger--Berty glared wrathfully at them. They were examining
one of Grandma’s books of engravings taken from Italian paintings, and
if it had been the latest number of some comic paper they would not
have had more fun over it.
“Here is a framed one,” she said, taking a picture from the mantel,
“by Sandro Botticelli.” Then, as she got close to them, she said,
threateningly, “If you two don’t stop giggling, I’ll shame you before
everybody!”
They tried to be good, they honestly did. They did not want to tease
the kind little sister, but something had come over the two men--they
were just like two bad schoolboys. If Mr. Jimson had been aware of
their mirth, they would have ceased, but just now he was so utterly
unconscious--so wrapped up in the contemplation of Miss Everest, that
they went on enjoying their secret pleasure with the luxury of good men
who seldom indulge in a joke at the expense of others, but who rival
the most thoughtless and frivolous when once they set out to amuse
themselves.
Yes, Mr. Jimson was staring and silent, but after a time his silence
ceased, and he began to talk. To talk for no apparent reason, and on no
apparent subject.
Margaretta and Selina, who had been paying very little attention to
him, courteously paused to listen, and he went on. Went on, till Berty
began to twitch in dismay, and to wink--at first slyly and secretly,
then openly and undisguisedly at him.
It was of no use. He had got “rattled,” as he had predicted, and was
bound to have his say out. He made her a slight sign with his head to
assure her that he understood her signals, and would if he could pay
attention to them, but he was too far gone.
Berty was in despair. Tom and Roger, to keep themselves from downright
shouting, were also talking very fast and very glibly about nothing in
particular.
Berty, in utter dismay, turned her head to her three groups of
guests--Selina and Margaretta gently and wonderingly polite, the Mayor
seated by a small table flooding the air with garrulity, and Tom and
Roger in the shade of the big piano lamp, expounding all sorts of
nonsensical theories and fancies.
Tom just now was on language. “Yes, my dear fellow,” he was saying,
rapidly and with outstretched arm, “language is a wonderful thing. I
may say that to see a young child grappling with the problem is an
awe-inspiring and remarkable sight. Sometimes when it fills the air
with its incoherent longings and strivings after oral utterance, after
the sounds which custom has made the representation of ideas, the soul
of the beholder is struck dumb with admiration, and even I may say
terror. If such is the power of the infant brain, what will be the
grasp of the adult?”
At this instant Grandma entered the room. She took in the situation
at a glance, and her presence afforded instant relief. The flood of
“Jimsonese,” as Roger and Tom styled the Mayor’s eloquence, instantly
ceased, the two bad boys shut their mouths.
Grandma shook hands with all her guests, then quietly sat down.
“I hope you are not very tired,” said Margaretta, gently. “How is your
patient?”
“Better--she only wanted a little comfort.”
“What made her have hysterics?” asked Berty, eagerly, and with a desire
to make much of the latest addition to their circle.
Grandma smiled. “She is a very nervous woman, and has been up nights a
great deal with a sick baby. She lay down about two hours ago to take
a nap. The house has a great many mice in it, and one got in her hair.
It was entangled for a few seconds, and she was terrified. It would be
very much more afraid of her than she would be of it.”
Tom and Roger laughed uproariously, so uproariously and joyfully that
Grandma’s black eyes went to them, rested on them, and did not leave
them.
But they did not care. They had not enjoyed themselves so much for
years, and they were going to continue doing so, although their
punishment was bound to come. Presently, when the conversation between
Grandma, Margaretta, Selina, and Berty became really interrupted by
their giggling, the old lady left her seat and came over to them.
“Have you been acting like this all the evening?” she asked, severely.
Tom looked at Roger, and Roger looked at Tom.
“And teasing poor Berty?”
Again they looked at each other.
“When I was a girl,” said Grandma, musingly, “I remember getting into
those gales of laughter. How I revelled in that intoxication of the
spirit! I would even scream with delight, and if I were alone with my
girl companions would sometimes roll on the ground in ecstasy. You are
pretty old for such pranks, but I see you are ready for one. You ought
to be alone for a time. Follow me,” and she left the room.
She took them down-stairs. “Where are we going?” asked Roger, humbly,
and nudging Tom.
“Out with the pigeons,” she said. “There is no room in my house for
guests who make fun of each other.”
“But the supper?” said Roger, anxiously.
“It would grieve Berty’s hospitable heart for you to miss that,” said
Grandma, “so when you have quite finished your laughing, come up-stairs
again, and we will all have a nice time together.”
Tom gave Roger a thwack, then, as he found himself in a latticed porch,
and contemplated by a number of mild-faced, inquiring pigeons, he
dropped on a box and began to snicker again.
“What set you off?” asked the old lady, curiously.
They both began to tell her of poor Berty’s trials with the Mayor.
Grandma laughed too. “There is something funny about that friendship,”
she said, “but there is no harm, but rather good in it, and I shall not
put a stop to it. Do you know that man would make a good husband for
your sister, Tom Everest?”
Tom at this became so silly, and began to pound Roger on the back in
such an idiotic manner, that Grandma gently closed the door and stole
away.
Going up the steps, she could hear them laughing--now in Homeric
fashion. There were no women about to be startled by their noise.