CONCERNING A FROCK
It might have been, and should have been, apparent to the several
members of the Baron household that Bonnie May had been giving an
admirable exhibition of self-repression from the moment she had entered
the house.
A change came at last--when Mrs. Baron disturbed the reading of the
play and announced, at nine o’clock, that it was “high time for a
little girl to be in bed.”
Mrs. Baron couldn’t possibly have realized how Bonnie May had been
accustomed to divide her hours between sleeping and waking. The guest
had spent her life among player people, whose active hours begin
at noon or later, and who do not deem the day ended until after
midnight--sometimes far later than midnight. Nor had it been found
convenient--or needful--by Bonnie May’s fellow workers to make any
exception to the rule on her behalf. She had been one of them, and she
had fared well and pleasantly.
Thus it was that when Mrs. Baron appeared, somewhat like a bolt out of
a clear sky, the child gave way to overwhelming rebellion.
“I’m not used to going to bed at this hour,” she declared bluntly. She
arose and stood by her chair, like a soldier by his guns, as the saying
is. And taking in the inexorable expression in Mrs. Baron’s eyes, she
turned appealingly to Baron. She was relying upon him to help her.
“Couldn’t she--” began Baron weakly, and added, quite without
conviction: “You know it’s Saturday night, mother!” He was glad he had
thought of its being Saturday, though he couldn’t see why that should
make very much difference. He really believed his mother’s position was
strong enough, if she had only gone about the matter more tactfully.
“Saturday night doesn’t make any difference,” declared Bonnie May, her
rebellion now including Baron in its scope. “It just isn’t a reasonable
bedtime.”
Baron felt ready to surrender. “Anyway, it won’t be so bad just for one
night,” he ventured.
“Never mind, Victor,” said Mrs. Baron pointedly. She addressed herself
to Bonnie May. “What you’ve been accustomed to may not be quite so
important as what you ought to become accustomed to,” she said. “Come!”
The child sauntered thoughtfully from the room. She had been impressed
by the fact that even Baron had not seemed surprised by the suggestion
that she ought to go to bed. She was trying to comprehend the
situation. After all, people who were not of the profession had ways
of their own, she realized. If they had _all_ decided to go to bed, she
wouldn’t have minded so much. But they were laying down a special law
for her.
Rebellion triumphed again. In Mrs. Baron’s room she halted. “Where am I
to sleep?” she inquired.
“I think you heard me tell Mrs. Shepard to prepare a room.”
“In the attic? Yes. But I’m not going to sleep there.”
“Indeed, you are.”
“I beg your pardon! Not under any circumstances!”
Mrs. Baron lifted her fingers to her lips and coughed--a very inexpert
cough. “You’ll have to do as I tell you, you know.” She resumed a
resolute march toward the hall, her hand pressed firmly against Bonnie
May’s back.
The child jerked away with a sense of outrage. She had never been
treated so before.
“Truly, you’ll have to obey me,” repeated Mrs. Baron.
Bonnie May was alarmed; she quite lost control of herself. “Stop your
kiddin’!” she said with a catch in her voice. She tried to say it
playfully, but her self-possession was gone. Her remark had sounded
simply offensive, indelicate.
“And I can’t permit you to use such language, either!” declared Mrs.
Baron.
The dismayed guest pressed her hands to her eyes as if she were trying
to think clearly.
Then she made a rush for the stairway!
Mrs. Baron put dignity aside long enough to pursue her, to seize her
by the arm. She was becoming outraged, greatly indignant. “What do you
mean to do?” she demanded, her voice trembling slightly.
“I’m quitting.”
“You’re----”
“I won’t stay here!”
The distressed old gentlewoman tried to calm herself. “Where do you
think of going?” she asked.
“Anywhere--to the theatres. Any company in town will be glad to have
me. They will know who I am. They--they are the kind of people who will
appreciate me!” The words were spoken in a tone of heart-break, of
despair.
Mrs. Baron afterward confessed to members of her family that for the
first time in her life she felt completely helpless. She was, in truth,
a somewhat childish person in many ways, and she was not accustomed to
any unpleasantnesses save those which she created for others.
At any rate, she swallowed with difficulty--and surrendered. “It’s
a very small point, after all,” she said ungraciously. “Go into my
room. Flora will look after you.” She spoke coldly, all her interest
seemingly withdrawn.
And just as the guest disappeared into Mrs. Baron’s sitting-room,
Flora came almost stealthily up the stairs.
“I wish you’d put that little limb of Satan to bed,” she said. Flora
saw that her mother’s hand, on the balustrade, trembled.
“Where shall I put her?” she inquired.
“Anywhere! just so you get her covered up for the night.”
Flora paused, her eyes uneasily seeking her mother’s.
“I’m afraid you’re angry with me, mother,” she said humbly.
“With you? Certainly not.”
Flora was puzzled. Her mother had long ago declared that Mr. Addis must
not be accepted as a visitor. Did she know that he had just gone? She
was about to enter her mother’s sitting-room when something prompted
her to turn.
“You knew Mr. Addis called, didn’t you?” she asked.
Mrs. Baron’s face flamed again. “Knew it? Certainly, I didn’t know it!
I’ve told Mrs. Shepard--I don’t intend that he shall annoy you!”
“Oh, mother! He doesn’t! And I think Mrs. Shepard didn’t know, this
time. Bonnie May went to the door and let him in. She called me
down-stairs without telling me who it was.” Flora surveyed her mother
yearningly, yet with a kind of gentle courage. “I don’t believe in
hiding things from you, mother. But I was glad to see him.”
Mrs. Baron looked grimly toward her own door. “_She_ let him in! Very
well. Put her to bed!”
She descended the stairs with dignity. She must have been thinking of
future victories rather than of past defeats.
* * * * *
When Flora entered the sitting-room she found Bonnie May standing in
uneasy contemplation.
“Mother says I’m to put you to bed,” said Miss Baron.
“Why didn’t she go ahead and put me to bed herself?”
Flora perceived that the question was not wanting in sincerity. She
decided to answer quite honestly.
“I think,” she ventured gently, “you must have said something to vex
her.”
“Not at all. She tried to vex me. I behaved very properly.”
Flora sighed and shook her head slowly; but she was smiling, too. She
was wondering what it really was that had gone wrong. “Possibly you
didn’t want to obey her?” she ventured.
The child’s brow puckered. “But why should I want to obey her?”
“Why--because she’s going to be good to you, I’m sure.”
“Well, I mean to be good to her, too--if she’ll let me. And I don’t ask
her to obey me.”
“But it’s different. She’s an old lady.”
“Well, I’ve got no patience with old people. It’s all right, just as a
_part_, but there’s no use putting it on all the time.”
“But, dear,” implored Flora, drawing the child within the curve of her
arm, “don’t say that! I know you mean to be nice and kind, but truly
you don’t understand. We must all grow old some time--even you will get
to be old.”
The guest gave deliberate thought to this; then her expression became
resolute. “Well, if they ever hang any gray hairs on me they’ll have to
catch me when I’m asleep--I’ll tell you that right now.”
Miss Baron was not encouraged to argue the point any further. She
resumed the subject of going to bed.
“You know I’m to have his room--your brother’s?” the guest insisted.
“Mother said you might sleep where you liked.”
“Did she say that?”
“Almost exactly.”
“Well, where is that attic room?”
“It’s up one more flight of stairs--under the roof.”
The child looked quite wistful and earnest, and then her words came
with conviction. “I just couldn’t sleep up there. Attics are where
misers sleep, and poor children. It’s where people die of hunger and
cold. It’s never the right kind of people. Come, let’s go to his room.”
And so they did.
“You won’t mind my helping you?” pleaded Flora.
“Helping me?”
“To undress, you know--and to be tucked in!”
The guest looked at her unresponsively. “But I’ve been used to doing
that for myself,” she said.
Flora quickly stooped and took her into her arms impulsively. “Dear
child,” she cried, her voice tremulous, “let me do it to-night! I think
you’ll love it--and I’ll love it, too.” She drew the perplexed face
almost roughly against her own.
She did not wait to be refused. She hurried into the bathroom and
busied herself; she was singing a little crooning song. There was also
the noise of water splashing into the tub.
She reappeared presently. “The water is ready--for your bath, you know,
and I’ve left one of my nighties there for you.” She smiled happily.
“Of course it will be too big. I’ll make you some little ones soon.”
The seeming perversion of the child asserted itself again. “I usually
take my bath in the morning,” she said a little stiffly; but she saw
how the glad light in Miss Baron’s eyes wavered, and she added quickly,
“but it will be all right.” And she went out into the bathroom.
When she reappeared after a rather long time she was smiling radiantly.
She had on Flora’s nightgown, soft and white, with pink ribbons. She
held it daintily up before her feet, and glanced back at the train
that dragged behind. “Isn’t it lovely!” she said.
“It is, dear,” said Flora.
She had turned the white coverlet and the sheet down. Now she watched
the child scramble up into the bed. She wanted to help, but she
refrained.
“Would you like me to tell you a story?” asked Flora.
Bonnie May looked at her swiftly, incredulously. “No!” she said. She
burst out into riotous laughter. “I’m not an _infant_,” she explained.
Flora flushed. “Very well,” she said gently. Yet she lingered in the
room a little while. She put some of Victor’s masculine decorations out
of sight. She adjusted the blind. She was about to extinguish the light
when she looked again at the strange guest.
The child’s eyes were fixed upon her widely, wonderingly.
“You lovely thing!” said Bonnie May.
“Good night, dear!” said Flora. And then she knew that the child wished
to speak to her, and she went over and bent above the bed. “What is it,
Bonnie May?” she asked.
The child stared before her in silence for a moment and then the words
came. “I wished so much that she would love me!” she said. “I tried so
hard....”
Flora slipped her hand under the guest’s head. “I’ll tell you a
secret,” she whispered. “If she hadn’t cared for you, she would have
been quite polite; she would have been wonderfully gracious. She was
ungracious and unkind because--because she loved you, dear. It seems
absurd, doesn’t it? But I know.”
* * * * *
It was an absurd theory, perhaps; yet there was certainly needed some
explanation of Mrs. Baron’s course later in the evening.
The house became quiet after a time. The rumbling voices in the library
ceased and Baggot, with meticulous circumspection, wended his way
down the stairs and was gone. Later, Victor emerged from the library
and disappeared for the night. Baron, Sr., came in and sat and smoked
awhile--and retired. Flora sat in the sitting-room lingeringly, gazing
pensively at a book without turning its pages, and at length she arose
and kissed her mother’s cheek and said good night.
And then Mrs. Baron tiptoed into another room and rummaged in a bureau
drawer and found a gay piece of gingham which had been waiting its time
to be useful. With this in her hands she returned to her sitting-room,
and spread work materials upon her table. And with patience and
fortitude and a kind of rapt self-absorption she worked far into the
night.
* * * * *
The usual Sunday-morning quietude of the mansion was disturbed somewhat
when the family again assembled. An extraordinary event had occurred.
Mrs. Baron had sat up late the night before and had made a Dress.
In announcing the fact she had pronounced the word in such a manner
that the use of the capital letter is fully justified. She displayed
the Dress for the admiration of her son and her daughter, and her
husband. And finally she generously relinquished it to Flora. “You may
give it to her,” she said rather loftily.
Bonnie May had not yet appeared.
Flora, knocked softly on the guest’s door and without waiting went into
the room, displaying the new garment rather conspicuously.
“What’s that?” inquired Bonnie May dubiously.
“It’s a new dress for you.”
“It was never made for me,” affirmed the child with conviction.
“Indeed, it was. Mother sat up ever so late last night and made it for
you.”
“Well, that, of course, was a matter I should have been consulted
about.”
Bonnie May was now sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to make the
toes of one foot come in contact with the floor. Miss Baron sat on a
low chair in the middle of the room, the new dress spread across her
knees.
“But you’re glad, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I’m glad in a way. I’m glad that anybody so disagreeable could really
try to do you a good turn.” Clearly, each day was a new day, with
Bonnie May.
“But, dear child, mother won’t seem disagreeable to you when you come
to know her. It hurts me to have you speak so of her--truly it does.
And I think she must have worked until she was very weary, making the
dress for you.”
“I appreciate all that,” the guest hastened to explain, genuine
compunction in her voice. “But you see, the dress isn’t at all
suitable.”
“I’m sure you’ll like it much better when you try it on.”
“Take my word for it--it won’t do.”
Miss Baron felt for the moment as if she could have pounced upon the
child and spanked her. But she noticed how one curl fell outside her
ear, and how the eyes and voice were profoundly earnest, and how the
attitude was eloquent of a kind of repentance before the fact.
And so she said: “Won’t you do something for me that will please me
better than anything else I can think of--something that will take only
a minute?”
Bonnie May looked at her meditatively--and then began to laugh quite
riotously! “You don’t look the part!” she gurgled in justification.
“What part, please?” The question was put somewhat blankly.
“You’re talking like a--oh, a Lady Clare, and you haven’t even got your
shoes buttoned up!”
Miss Baron slowly regarded her shoes; then her glance travelled calmly
to Bonnie May; then she rather dully inspected the dress that lay
across her knees. Her countenance had become inscrutable. She turned
away from the guest’s scrutiny, and after a moment she arose slowly and
left the room, carrying the dress with her.
She did not stop to define her feelings. She was wounded, but she
felt sharp resentment, and she was thinking rebelliously that she
was in no degree responsible for Bonnie May. Still ... her sense of
justice stayed her. She had the conviction that the child’s remark, if
inexcusably frank, was a fair one. And it had been made so joyously!
However, she meant to go to her mother with a request to be excused
from any further humiliation as Bonnie May’s handmaiden. But before
she had proceeded half a dozen steps she began to fear even greater
disaster, if Mrs. Baron should undertake to be the bearer of the
rejected dress.
It would be a victory worth working for, if she could overcome the
fastidious guest’s prejudice.
She went to her room and carefully buttoned her shoes and made other
improvements in her toilet. Then she went back into Bonnie May’s
presence.
“I _was_ untidy,” she confessed. “I hope you’ll excuse me.” She
was smoothing out the new dress. “You see, I only meant to wear my
every-day shoes until after breakfast, and then put on my good shoes,
for Sunday-school and church. And I’ve been very busy.”
Bonnie May pondered this judicially. “It’s lovely of you to be so nice
about it,” she finally admitted, “but I’m afraid I don’t get your
idea....” She frowned. “Every-day shoes’ and ‘Sunday shoes,’” she
repeated vaguely.
“Well?” said Flora persuasively.
“Don’t you like to be as good on Saturday as on Sunday?”
“Why, yes--just as good, certainly.” Flora was looking bewildered.
“And on Friday, and on other days?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, why shouldn’t you wear your ‘good’ shoes all the week, then?”
“But people must look nicer on Sundays than on other days.”
“I don’t see why. If you only look nice, I don’t see what’s the good.
And if you really are nice, I think the nice shoes might help all the
time.”
“What I mean is,” persisted Flora patiently, “I don’t like to work in
my nice shoes.” She brought this out somewhat triumphantly.
“That’s funny. That’s the very time I like to look my best. Nothing is
as important as your work, is it?”
Flora was almost in despair. “I doubt if I ever thought of it in just
that light,” she admitted. “I’ll think it over, if you’ll try the dress
on--and if you don’t like it, off it comes!”
“Well, all right.” (This with a sudden calm which was not reassuring.)
Flora slipped the gingham dress into place, and patted it here and
there with the air of one who admires, and viewed it with her head
inclined a little, as women do in such a situation. “It’s the dearest
thing!” she said honestly. “Now come and see how you look.”
The mirror was a little high. She lifted Bonnie May to a chair.
She was alarmed by what ensued. The child stared fixedly, with
incredulous eyes in which a great horror grew.
“Oh, Lord!” she cried, clapping her hands over her eyes. “Take it off!
Take it off!”
“What in the world is the matter?” demanded Flora.
“She asks me what is the matter! Oh, heavens!” Bonnie May jumped down
from the chair and turned her back to the mirror. She was wringing her
hands.
“I don’t understand at all!” exclaimed Miss Baron hopelessly.
“You might!” was the emphatic rejoinder. “Do you suppose I want to
play that kind of a part--here? It might do for the little sister of a
sewing-machine girl, or a mountain-pink with her hair in knobs. But it
wouldn’t do for anything else. If you was only one of the populace, a
costume like that would cause a scream! If you don’t understand it,
take my word for it. I can’t wear it! I ask you to take it off!”
Miss Baron became very quiet. She became thoughtful, too. She had not
failed to catch the drift of these exaggerated words. There _was_
something prim, something rudimentary, about the dress. Color suffused
her cheeks; she hung her head. She felt a forlorn inclination to laugh.
From a vantage point behind the child she began to remove the gingham
dress.
It _was_ inappropriate. She had to admit it. It was a dress for a
Gretchen; for the Cinderella of the kitchen, rather than the princess
of the coach-and-four. It wasn’t becoming at all.