Barry was the last guest to reach Holly Hall on the evening of Mrs.
Burgoyne's first dinner-party, and came in to find the great painter
who was her guest the centre of a laughing and talking group in the
long drawing-room. Mrs. Apostleman, with an open book of reproductions
from Whistler on her broad, brocade lap, had the armchair next to the
guest of honor, and Barry's quick look for his hostess discovered her
on a low hassock at the painter's knee, looking very young and fresh,
in her white frock, with a LaMarque rose at her belt and another in her
dark hair. She greeted him very gravely, almost timidly, and in the new
self-consciousness that had suddenly come to them both it was with
difficulty that even the commonplace words of greeting were
accomplished, and it was with evident relief that she turned from him
to ask her guests to come into the dining-room.
Warm daylight was still pouring into the drawing-room at seven o'clock,
and in the pleasant dining-room, too, there was no other light. The
windows here were wide open, and garden scents drifted in from the
recently watered flower-beds. The long table, simply set, was
ornamented only by low bowls of the lovely San Rafael roses.
Guided and stimulated by the hostess, the conversation ran in a gay,
unbroken stream, for the painter liked to talk, and Santa Paloma
enjoyed him. But under it all the women guests were aware of an almost
resentful amazement at the simplicity of the dinner. When, after nine
o'clock, the ladies went into the drawing-room and settled about a
snapping wood fire, Mrs. Lloyd could not resist whispering to Mrs.
Apostleman, "For a COMPANY dinner!" Mrs. Adams was entirely absorbed in
deciding just what position she would take when Mrs. White alluded to
the affair the next day; but Mrs. White had come primed for special
business this evening, and she took immediate advantage of the absence
of the men to speak to Mrs. Burgoyne.
"As president of our little club," said she, when they were all seated,
"I am authorized to ask you if I may put your name up for membership,
Mrs. Burgoyne. We are all members here, and in this quiet place our
meetings are a real pleasure, and I hope an education as well."
"Oh, really--!" Mrs. Burgoyne began, but the other went on serenely:
"I brought one of our yearly programs, we have just got them out, and
I'm going to leave it with you. I think Mr. White left it here on the
table. Yes; here it is. You see," she opened a dainty little book and
flattened it with a white, jeweled hand, "our work is all laid out, up
to the president's breakfast in March. I go out then, and a week later
we inaugurate the new president. Let me just run over this for you, for
I KNOW it will interest you. Now here, Tuesdays. Tuesday is our regular
meeting day. We have a program, music, and books suggested for the
week, reports, business, and one good paper--the topics vary; here's
'Old Thanksgiving Customs,' in November, then a debate, 'What is
Friendship,' then 'Christmas Spirit,' and then our regular Christmas
Tree and Jinks. Once a month, on Tuesday, we have some really fine
speaker from the city, and we often have fine singers, and so on. Then
we have a monthly reception for our visitors, and a supper; usually we
just have tea and bread-and-butter after the meetings. Then, first
Monday, Directors' Meeting; that doesn't matter. Every other Wednesday
the Literary Section meets, they are doing wonderful work; Miss Foster
has that; she makes it very interesting. 'What English Literature Owes
to Meredith,' 'Rossetti, the Man,'--you see I'm just skimming, to give
you some idea. Then the Dramatic Section, every other Thursday; they
give a play once a year; that's great fun! 'Ibsen--Did he Understand
Women?' 'Please Explain--Mr. Shaw?'--Mrs. Moore makes that very
amusing. Then alternate Thursdays the Civic and Political Section--"
"Ah! What does that do?" said Mrs. Burgoyne.
"Why," said Mrs. White hesitating, "I haven't been--however, I think
they took up the sanitation of the schools; Miss Jewett, from
Sacramento, read a splendid paper about it. There's a committee to look
into that, and then last year that section planted a hundred trees. And
then there's parliamentary drill."
"Which we all need," said Mrs. Adams, and there was laughter.
"Then there's the Art Department once a month," resumed Mrs. White,
"Founders' Day, Old-Timers' Day, and, in February, we think Judge
Lindsey may address us--"
"Oh, are you doing any juvenile-court work?" said the hostess.
"We wanted his suggestions about it," Mrs. White said. "We feel that if
we COULD get some of the ladies interested--! Then here's the French
class once a week; German, Spanish, and the bridge club on Fridays."
"Gracious! You use your clubhouse," said Mrs. Burgoyne.
"Nearly every day. So come on Tuesday," said the president winningly,
"and be our guest. A Miss Carroll is to sing, and Professor Noyesmith,
of Berkeley, will read a paper on: 'The City Beautiful.' Keep that
year-book; I butchered it, running through it so fast."
"Well, just now," Mrs. Burgoyne began a little hesitatingly, "I'm
rather busy. I am at the Mail office while the girls are in school, you
know, and we have laid out an enormous lot of gardening for afternoons.
They never tire of gardening if I'm with them, but, of course, no
children will do that sort of thing alone; and it's doing them both so
much good that I don't want to stop it. Then they study German and
Italian with me, and on Saturday have a cooking lesson. You see, my
time is pretty full."
"But a good governess would take every bit of that off your hands, me
dear," said Mrs. Apostleman.
"Oh, but I love to do it!" protested Mrs. Burgoyne with her wide-eyed,
childish look. "You can't really buy for them what you can do yourself,
do you think so? And now the other children are beginning to come in,
and it's such fun! But that isn't all. I have editorial work to do,
besides the Mail, you know. I manage the 'Answers to Mothers' column in
a little eastern magazine. I daresay you've never seen it; it is quite
unpretentious, but it has a large circulation. And these mothers write
me, some of them factory-workers, or mothers of child-workers even, or
lonely women on some isolated ranch; you've no idea how interesting it
is! Of course they don't know who I am, but we become good friends,
just the same. I have the best reference books about babies and
sickness, and I give them the best advice I can. Sometimes it's a boy's
text-book that is wanted, or a second-hand crib, or some dear old
mother to get into a home, and they are so self-respecting about it,
and so afraid they aren't paying fair--I love that work! But, of
course, it takes time. Then I've been hunting up a music-teacher for
the girls. I can't teach them that--"
"I meant to speak to you of that," Mrs. White said. "There's a Monsieur
Posti, Emil Posti, he studied with Leschetizky, you know, who comes up
from San Francisco every other week, and we all take from him. In
between times--"
"Oh, but I've engaged a nice little Miss Davids from Old Paloma," said
Mrs. Burgoyne.
"From Old Paloma!" echoed three women together. And Mrs. Apostleman
added heavily, "Never heard of her!"
"I got a good little Swedish sewing-woman over there," the hostess
explained, "and she told me of this girl. She's a sweet girl; no
mother, and a little sister to bring up. She was quite pleased."
"But, good heavens! What does she know? What's her method?" demanded
Mrs. White in puzzled disapproval.
"She has a pretty touch," Mrs. Burgoyne said mildly, "and she's
bristling with ambition and ideas. She's not a genius, perhaps; but,
then, neither is either of the girls. I just want them to play for
their own pleasure, read accompaniments; something of that sort. Don't
you know how popular the girl who can play college songs always is at a
house-party?"
"Well, really--" Mrs. White began, almost annoyed; but she broke her
sentence off abruptly, and Mrs. Apostleman filled the pause.
"Whatever made ye go over there for a dress-maker?" she demanded. "We
never think of going there. There's a very good woman here, in the Bank
Building--"
"Madame Sorrel," supplemented Mrs. Adams.
"She's fearfully independent," Mrs. Lloyd contributed; "but she's good.
She made your pink, didn't she, Sue? Wayne said she did."
Mrs. Adams turned pink herself; the others laughed suddenly.
"Oh, you naughty girl!" Mrs. White said. "Did you tell Wayne you got
that frock in Santa Paloma?"
"What Wayne doesn't know won't hurt him," said his wife. "Sh! Here they
come!" And the conversation terminated abruptly, with much laughter.
Mrs. Burgoyne's dinner-party dispersed shortly after ten o'clock, so
much earlier than was the custom in Santa Paloma that none of the
ordered motor-cars were in waiting. The guests walked home together,
absorbed in an animated conversation; for the gentlemen, who were
delighted to be getting home early, delighted with a dinner that, as
Wayne Adams remarked, "really stood for something to eat, not just
things passed to you, or put down in dabs before you," and delighted
with the pleasant informality of sitting down in daylight, were
enthusiastic in their praise of Mrs. Burgoyne. The ladies differed with
them.
"She knows how to do things," said Parker Lloyd. "Old Von Praag himself
said that she was a famous dinner-giver."
"I don't know what you'd say, Wayne," said Mrs. Adams patiently, "if
_I_ asked people to sit down to the dinner we had to-night! Of course
we haven't eight millions, but I would be ashamed to serve a cocktail,
a soup--I frankly admit it was delicious--steaks, plain lettuce salad,
and fruit. I don't count coffee and cheese. No wines, no entrees; I
think it was decidedly QUEER."
"I wish some of you others would try it," said Willard White
unexpectedly. "I never get dinners like that, except at the club, down
in town. The cocktail was a rare sherry, the steaks were broiled to a
turn, and the salad dressing was a wonder. She had her cheese just ripe
enough, and samovar coffee to wind up with--what more do you want? I
serve wine myself, but champagne keeps you thirsty all night, and other
wines put me to sleep. I don't miss wine! I call it a bang-up dinner,
don't you, Parker?"
Parker Lloyd, with his wife on his arm, felt discretion his part.
"Well," he said innocently selecting the one argument most distasteful
to the ladies, "it was a man's dinner, Will. It was just what a man
likes, served the way he likes it. But if the girls like flummery and
fuss, I don't see why they shouldn't have it."
"Really!" said Mrs. White with a laugh that showed a trace of something
not hilarious, "really, you are all too absurd! We are a long way from
the authorities here, but I think we will find out pretty soon that
simple dinners have become the fad in Washington, or Paris, and that
your marvelous Mrs. Burgoyne is simply following the fashion like all
the rest of us."