ELITHE AND CLARICE.
It was the fashionable hour for bathing. The band, which alternated
between Oceanside and the Heights, was to play that morning, and the
pavilion was full of people watching the bathers diving, swimming and
jumping and filling the air with shouts of laughter. Elithe had wanted
her aunt to come with her, but Miss Hansford had excused herself and
consigned her to the care of a lady, who promised that she should not
stay in the water too long or get beyond her depth. At first Elithe
looked round for Paul. He was not to be seen, and, thinking he had
probably gone fishing, she took possession of her bath room and arrayed
herself in her blue suit, which was rather baggy and conspicuous from
its over size. She, however, did not think so, and started gayly with
her friend across the platform or bridge leading to the water. At the
head of the steps Clarice Percy was standing, clad in a fanciful costume
of black, trimmed with scarlet, and exposing so much of her person that
Elithe felt ashamed for her, and wondered how she could look so
unconcerned with so many masculine eyes upon her. Although Clarice had
not called upon Elithe, she had seen her several times and knew she was
at the bath house, for they had come down in the same car, she sitting
in front and Elithe, who got in later, in the rear. Clarice usually
bathed at the Tower on the Oceanside, as it was nearer her mother’s
cottage, but this morning she was at the Heights for a purpose of her
own. Paul had told her the previous night not to expect him the next
day, for, if he did not go fishing, he should be at the Heights, as
Elithe was to take her first bath and he had promised to see to her.
Paul had talked too much of Elithe to suit Clarice, who sometimes felt
that she hated the girl because of his interest in her. She was,
however, too politic to show her real feelings. Smiling very sweetly,
she said: “That will suit me perfectly, as I am going there, too. I’m
told it is not as stony as at the Tower.”
Thoroughly honest and open in everything he said or did, Paul did not
see through the ruse, and was rather glad than otherwise to show off
Clarice’s accomplishments as diver and swimmer to the people at the
Heights. He could attend to Elithe first and her afterwards, and he
hoped the fishing party might be given up, as it was at the last moment,
and this made him late at the beach. Glancing at the bathers and seeing
neither Clarice nor Elithe among them, he dressed himself leisurely,
and, going out, found Clarice waiting for him. She had heard that the
fishing was given up and knew Paul would be there. She had seen Elithe
when she appeared at the end of the long platform, and watched her as
she came across it. Something in the dress first attracted and then
startled her so that her look was a stare when Elithe came close to her.
For a moment their eyes met, and Elithe’s kindled a little expectantly,
then fell under the haughty gaze confronting them.
“That’s Miss Percy, the proudest girl on the island,” Miss Noble said to
Elithe, who did not reply.
She was too much absorbed in putting one foot in the water and taking it
back again with a shiver to think of Clarice still watching her
curiously.
“I can’t be mistaken,” she was saying, when she saw Paul coming from the
bath house and went to meet him. “You see I am here,” she said, putting
her hand on his arm, “and so is your Western friend. See?”
She pointed towards Elithe, who was now standing up to her waist in the
water and resisting Miss Noble’s efforts to get her farther out.
“Yes, I see. She’s afraid. They always are at first. Let’s go to her.”
Elithe saw him coming and smiled pleasantly upon him, and then gave a
little cry as a wave came tumbling in and nearly knocked her down.
“Hallo!” Paul cried. “Frightened, arn’t you? That won’t do. Go under as
soon as you can. Let’s have a dip.”
Still holding Clarice’s hand, he seized Elithe’s and said to her: “Take
hold of Clarice’s. Now, all hands round,” he cried, jumping up and down
until both girls were thoroughly splashed with water and Elithe’s fears
had entirely vanished. Clarice was never more angry in her life. To be
thus associated with Elithe was too much to bear quietly. Wrenching her
hands away without a word, she struck out for the raft at some distance
from the shore, and, climbing upon it, sat down while Paul waded farther
out, with his arm around Elithe, and then tried to make her swim. She
proved an apt pupil, and he complimented her highly upon her skill.
“By the way, where is Clarice?” he asked, looking round until he saw
her. “Oh, there she is! Suppose we go to her. It’s not very far,” he
suggested.
Something warned Elithe to keep away from the raft while Clarice was
there.
“I don’t believe I’ll try it,” she said. “I guess I’ve done enough for
one morning. I’m getting tired, and think I’ll go ashore if Miss Noble
is ready.”
Miss Noble was quite ready, and Paul went with them to the stairs and
then swam back to the raft, where Clarice was still sitting. She had
learned from experience that her little spurts of temper were lost on
Paul, who either did not or would not notice them, and when he said to
her, “You’ll take cold sitting there so long; come into the water,” she
obeyed at once, and began swimming toward the shore. As they neared it
and she was walking beside him she said: “Didn’t your Western friend
come from Samona, and isn’t her father the Rev. Roger Hansford?”
“Yes,” Paul replied, and Clarice continued, in a low tone: “I thought
so. Funny, isn’t it? She has on my old bathing suit. I sent it to Samona
in a missionary box with a lot more things.”
“That accounts for its being so becoming to her,” Paul replied, shaking
the water from his hair, as he went up the steps.
Clarice gave a shrug of annoyance. Her little shaft had failed to hit
the mark, and she was not in a very good humor when she left him and
went towards her dressing room, meeting on the way an acquaintance, who,
like herself, had just left the water.
Meanwhile Elithe was divesting herself of her wet garments, and had
nearly completed her toilet when Clarice and her friend passed her door,
one taking the room next her own and the other the adjoining one. They
were talking together, and every word they said could be distinctly
heard by Elithe.
“Do you often come here?” one asked, and the other replied: “Haven’t
been here before this summer, and don’t believe I’ll come again. Not a
soul I know but you and Paul.”
Elithe thought she recognized the last speaker’s voice, but was not sure
until the first spoke again.
“I say, Clarice, who is the pretty girl Mr. Ralston was teaching to
swim?”
Elithe held her breath for the answer, which came promptly and plain.
“That? Oh, that’s a niece of that frumpy Miss Hansford. You’ve heard of
her, of course. The girl’s name is Elithe,—rather a pretty name, too.
She’s from the wild and woolly West, Miners’ Camp, or something in
Montana. Paul has the queerest notions about some things. He has always
liked the aunt, and is polite to her niece, just as he is to every one.
I believe the old maid asked him to take charge of her to-day. Do you
think her pretty? I wish you could have seen her on the boat the day she
came. Such a guy, and such baggage,—actually tied with a rope!”
“Not, really?”
“Yes, really. Hope to die if it wasn’t; and she has on an old bathing
suit of mine which was sent in a missionary box from our church in
Washington to the Rev. Roger Hansford. That’s her father. I can’t be
mistaken. The buttons and braid were of a peculiar kind. I never liked
it, and only wore it at Long Branch a few times. I knew it in a minute.
There was a riding cap of mine in the same box. I wonder if she has that
and will appear in it some day? No, I don’t think her very pretty.
Perhaps she would be if her clothes were not so back-woodsy. She was at
church last Sunday in a made-over changeable silk, with small sleeves,
gathered just a little at the top. Not material enough to make them
larger, I suppose. Probably that was in some box like my bathing suit.
Her aunt sent word for me to call. Think of it!”
“Have you called?” the first speaker asked, and Clarice replied: “I
guess not much! Shan’t, either; although Paul wants me to do so. He’s
very democratic, you know.”
“Yes, but an awfully nice fellow, and you are to be congratulated.”
“That’s so,” Clarice assented, and, opening the door of her bath room,
she walked away, followed by her friend, with no suspicion that Elithe
had heard every word.
If she could have gotten out she would, but she was not quite dressed,
and could only sit and listen. She did not care so much for what was
said of herself as of her belongings,—the silk dress she had thought so
fine and her poor old trunk. The latter had been her father’s, carried
by him on many a journey in the Western wilds. The silk was her mother’s
wedding gown, and every time she wore it she seemed to feel the touch of
her mother’s loving hands in its soft folds. The sleeves were small, she
knew, for the pattern was scant, but just how small they were she never
realized until now, or just how small she was herself, with everything
pertaining to her. She heard Paul calling down the passage way,
“Clarice, Clarice, are you ready?” and knew he was waiting to escort his
fiancée home.
“I hate her!” she said to herself. “To make fun of _me_ and she does it
to him, too, no doubt.”
This was the bitterest thought of all,—to be made light of and ridiculed
to Paul Ralston, and Elithe cried harder than she ever remembered having
cried before. That the bathing suit had belonged to Clarice she was
sure, for on the lining of the belt were the initials, “C. P.” She could
see them now on the floor where the wet garments lay, and she put her
foot upon it, spurning it from her.
“I’ll never wear it again!” she said, “nor the cap, either. It was in
the same box. It was hers!”
With the thought of the cap came a recollection of Mr. Pennington. He
and Paul Ralston belonged to Clarice Percy’s world. They had been very
kind to her. They liked her. They did not think her a _guy_ from the
“wild and woolly” West, and their opinion was worth more than that of
Clarice. There was some consolation in this, and, drying her eyes, she
wrung the water from the dripping garments on the floor, rolled them in
a newspaper and started for home.
Her aunt had told her to ride both ways, as the walk was a long one from
the bath houses to the cottage, and the car was ready to start as she
came out of the building. In it were Paul and Clarice, the latter very
fresh and cool looking in her thin summer muslin, a striking contrast to
Elithe’s plain calico and linen collar.
“I’ll not ride with her,” Elithe thought, shaking her head at the
conductor, who was ringing the bell and inviting her to get in.
It was hot and dusty, but she did not mind it as she hurried along,
smarting from the indignity she had suffered and anxious to be rid of
the detested bundle she carried. What she should do with it she did not
know until she reached the cottage. Miss Hansford was ironing with a
hotter fire than usual, and had just lifted a cover from the stove, when
Elithe burst in like a whirlwind.
Her eyes were flashing, her face was crimson, with perspiration
trickling down it in streams, and she looked more like a little fury
than the usual mild and placid Elithe.
“What is the matter?” Miss Hansford asked, but Elithe did not reply.
She was dropping the blue suit upon the red-hot coals and watching it as
it spluttered and hissed and sent up great smudges of smoke and an odor
of burning wool. She did not stop to cover it up, but, darting up to her
room, found the velvet riding cap which suited her so well. She detested
it now, and, hurrying back to the kitchen, removed the cover her aunt
had replaced and dropped the pretty velvet thing into the fire, and with
the poker pushed the burning mass into the flame until it was a charred
and blackened crisp.
“Are you crazy or what?” Miss Hansford asked, this time rather
indignantly, for the room was full of smoke and black flecks, some of
which had settled upon the table-cloth she was ironing.
“Never was more sane in my life, and never more angry,” Elithe replied.
Little by little she told her story, while Miss Hansford listened,
forgetting her table-cloth drying on the ironing board and her fire
dying down from contact with so much wool and salt water. Never before
had Miss Hansford been so indignant. Even Paul came in for a share of
her animadversion. He was a fool to care for a girl like Clarice.
Everything pertaining to the Percys was brought to light. The bondman
was resurrected, with old Roger and the treasury clerks, until there was
scarcely a shred of respectability left to the family. And Clarice had
insulted Elithe and called her a _guy_ and made fun of her clothes and
trunk.
At this point Miss Hansford stopped short, remembering how the trunk had
looked when brought to her door, and that she had been glad when it was
safely housed from the curious eyes of her neighbors. It _was_ battered
and rusty, and as for Elithe’s clothes.——Here she took counsel with
herself again. She had thought but little of Elithe’s dress, except that
it was neat and plain, as a minister’s daughter’s dress ought to be.
Now, however, in the light of Clarice’s criticism she awoke to the fact
that it was not exactly like that of other girls whom she saw daily in
the street. What the difference was she could not have told, she paid so
little attention to the fashions. _She_ wore her gowns years; _her_
sleeves were tight to her skin. She didn’t know what the fashions were.
But she would know, and Elithe should look like other girls, if she
ruined herself in doing it. She had cooled down considerably by the time
this decision was reached.
“Don’t cry. It’ll make you sick again,” she said to Elithe, whose tears
were falling as she recalled the sarcastic criticism which had cut so
deep and seemed worse the more she thought of it.
Her head began to ache, and when that afternoon Paul came in to ask how
she was feeling after her bath, he was told that she “wasn’t feeling
anyhow and had gone to bed.” This information Miss Hansford gave
crispily, and her crispiness continued as Paul expressed his regret and
surprise, saying: “She seemed to enjoy it so much, and after the first
dip took to the water like a duck. She’ll learn to swim in no time. I
hope she’ll be all right to-morrow. I want her to go over to the Tower.”
“She won’t go to the Tower, and she won’t go anywhere very soon, let me
tell you,” Miss Hansford said, while Paul wondered what had occurred to
throw her so far off her equilibrium.
“I’m sorry. I hope nothing disagreeable happened to her,” he said.
For a minute Miss Hansford was tempted to tell him the truth. Then,
changing her mind, she asked if he knew the shops in Boston well. “The
stores, I mean, and places where folks go to get things up to
date,—where your mother trades, for instance, and people like her.”
“Why, yes,” he replied. “There’s Jordan and Marsh, and White’s.”
“I know them places. Ain’t there others?” Miss Hansford interrupted.
“Certainly. There’s Hollander’s, on Boylston Street,—rather more
expensive, I expect.”
“I don’t care for expense. I want things that nobody can make fun of,”
Miss Hansford interrupted him again, and he continued: “You’ll get them
there, and shoes in the same street, and hats. I believe Clarice bought
one there, the prettiest she ever had.”
“You don’t remember the number, nor name?” Miss Hansford asked.
“No, I don’t. I can get it, though, of Clarice,” Paul said.
“You needn’t do that. I can inquire. I have a tongue,” Miss Hansford
answered, mentally resolving that wherever Clarice had shopped she would
shop and so be sure she was right.
“Are you thinking of going to Boston?” Paul asked.
“Yes. Where does Mrs. Percy put up when she’s there?”
“Usually with us, or, if at a hotel, at the Adams House. That’s a good
place,” Paul said, while Miss Hansford took mental notes for future use.
Something ailed her. Paul could not guess what, and, after a few
unsuccessful attempts to bring her to herself, he left, hoping Elithe
would change her mind and go to the Tower on the morrow.
“I shall call for her,” he said, and the next morning he was at the
cottage, which he found closed, with no sign of life about it. “She’s
gone to Boston, and won’t be back for some days,” a neighbor called to
him from her window, and, feeling disappointed that Elithe was not to
have her second lesson in swimming, Paul hailed a passing car and joined
Clarice at the Tower.