THE SPECIAL DELIVERY
Miss Frazier approved, and was even delighted with the frocks when she
came up to view them after breakfast next morning.
“Shall we try them on for you?” Kate offered eagerly.
“No, I don’t believe so. I can trust Madame Pearl, I am sure, to say
nothing of you girls yourselves! And there is a lot to be done now to
get ready for the party.”
Miss Frazier was moving and speaking in suppressed excitement, any one
could see that. This party to her was to be a significant moment in her
own life as well as in the girls’!
“What can we do?” Kate asked.
“You may help me to decorate the drawing-room and hall. If I engage a
professional person he will simply load the whole place with flowers in
a set and stuffy way. Besides, this is an informal party, and we want
the decorations to be very simple and unstudied.” Then Miss Frazier
added with a twinkle in her eye, “That’s why we must study very hard and
fuss and consult.”
Both girls laughed at that.
“I’m expecting a man now to help Timothy move the furniture back for
dancing. As soon as they are done we can begin. The dresses are
charming, and I congratulate you.”
Since getting into the train the afternoon before the comrade in Elsie
had not been visible. The girls had spoken to each other only in
monosyllables and with eyes usually averted. Almost as though they had
agreed upon it, however, they played up a little in the presence of
their aunt. She had been so kind to them and counted so much on the day
together to have made them friends, they had not the heart to let her
see just how things stood between them. So at dinner they had told her
of the day’s adventures vivaciously, dwelling most on their reactions to
“The Blue Bird” and the episode of the post. For some reason Elsie did
not mention the young man who had shadowed them in such an unshadowy
way. That omission surprised Kate and gave her pause. What did such
reticence mean? Aunt Katherine had been much diverted by Kate’s account
of her interview with the box-office clerk and the manager. Her comment
had been, “You are a Frazier, Kate! You have a _spine_. I imagine the
manager sensed that.”
After dinner the three had settled to a quite exciting game of Mah Jong.
No need for Elsie and Kate to pretend friendliness then, for the game
took all their attention, and they could forget each other as persons.
After that there was a brief stroll in the garden, Aunt Katherine
walking between the girls, their arms drawn through hers. It had all
seemed very peaceful and congenial. But there had been no “good-nights”
upstairs, though in accordance with Aunt Katherine’s will the doors
stood open between the two bedrooms.
So now, when Aunt Katherine left to attend to the moving of the
furniture, Kate turned to Bertha and said, “I shall be in the garden
over by the Dentons’ hedge, writing letters. Will you call me when Miss
Frazier is ready, Bertha?”
Without a glance at Elsie she picked up her pad and hurried out. She
hoped that Elsie realized she was avoiding using the sitting-room and
the desk they were supposed to share; and she would not have minded
knowing that Elsie’s conscience bothered her about it. But if it did,
Elsie gave no sign. She herself simply turned away about some business
of her own.
There was so much for Kate to tell her mother in this letter that was
interesting and wonderful! First, of course, there was Madame Pearl and
her most unique shop that didn’t look like a shop a bit. She must
describe the frocks they had chosen, or rather that Madame Pearl had
chosen for them; Kate realized now that they themselves had done no
choosing at all. Then dining in the luxurious club—she would describe
that in detail. She had never in her life had quite such a stimulating
conversation with any one before as that conversation at luncheon. She
recalled it now as an hour during which she had _thought_, and thought
rapidly, and expressed her thoughts to an attentive listener who in her
turn _thought_ and came back at her in a most provocative manner. Ideas
had spun in the air between them like iridescent bubbles, changing
colour as they turned and you viewed different sides of them. The truth
about that was that two most congenial minds had discovered each other,
and that is as exciting an adventure as there is in the world, and not
at all an ordinary one. The thing that gave this experience its final
tang was that the two minds, though comprehending each other perfectly,
worked entirely differently. It followed that for each other they had
great discoveries and surprises. Together they danced as one in figures
new to both!—Of course, Kate could not tell her mother exactly this, but
she could tell her enough so that she would understand a little what had
happened. But she must begin.
Instead, unhygienically, she sucked the end of her pencil.
Would Mother approve of her having accepted the party frock? That
bothered her a little. Knowing Aunt Katherine now she understood her
mother much less than ever before on these points. The dress must have
cost—no, she would not imagine what it must have cost since Aunt
Katherine had told her not to give that end of it a thought. Still, she
would describe the dress to Mother, and she could come to conclusions
for herself.
“Dearest Mother”:—Oh, there was so much, so very much, it was quite
hopeless to write! There was the fairy in the glass. That must be told
first. There was not the slightest doubt in Kate’s mind that the two
were exactly the same, the fairy in the woods that day and the
reflection of Elsie in the mirror at Madame Pearl’s. But what its
explanation could be was unthinkable. At the time the little Kate had
seen the fairy in the woods, Elsie was only a little girl of her own
age. How, then, had Kate seen her as she would look eight years later in
a mirror in a Boston shop? It was such an unanswerable question that
Kate’s mind turned away from it. Still, not for one minute did she doubt
that the two visions had been exactly the same. What would Katherine
make of it?
“Hello. Good morning.” Jack Denton, in white flannels, tall and
athletic, was standing the other side of the hedge, swinging his tennis
racket and smiling a friendly, frank smile. “Excuse me, but you’re Miss
Kate Marshall, aren’t you? My sister and I are coming to the party in
your honour to-night. I’m Jack Denton, and Rose will be out in a minute.
If you’ll play a set with us I’ll call up another fellow and make
doubles.”
Kate jumped up, delighted. She went to the wall. “Good morning,” she
said. “I was just beginning a letter. But I’d love to play—that is, for
a little while, till Aunt Katherine needs me. But why don’t we just
shout for Elsie? She likes tennis, I know, and Aunt Katherine says she
plays wonderfully.”
But Jack’s expression had changed queerly. He grew slightly red and
avoided looking directly at Kate. “No need to get any one yet,” he
objected. “Heaven knows when Rose will be out. She’s awfully pokey—slow.
Let us begin just by ourselves till she does appear, anyway. Can you
jump? Here’s a hand.”
But Kate shook her head. “No, thanks. I don’t think I’ll play, after
all. I may be called any minute to help Aunt Katherine, and
besides—besides, it’s very warm, isn’t it?”
Kate was looking at the pad in her hand, about to turn away.
But Jack kept her a minute. “Oh, I say! You aren’t offended, are you? I
wouldn’t do that for anything.”
“No, of course not.” But Kate’s negation was made only out of a spirit
of reserve and also embarrassment. “No.”
“But you are, and I don’t wonder. Of course you’d be on your cousin’s
side. And listen. We are, too. Rose and I and all of us are, always have
been. We never could see any sense in all the hubbub. It’s just been
Grandmother and Grandmother’s friends. We all thought Elsie was great
stuff when she visited Miss Frazier before—— And we’re coming to the
party to-night, you bet. Only—at this minute Grandmother is sitting
right up there in a window where she can see the court, and it might
change her, decide her for some reason not to go to-night. She feels
that her going formally and giving in, as it were, publicly, is the
thing that’s going to turn the trick. It’s her show, sort of. If we did
it first, now, she might be just as bad as ever again, begin all over
again. Do you see?”
“No, I don’t see,” Kate said in all truth. Jack’s explanations shed no
light whatsoever. His face had grown steadily redder as he realized that
he had simply made a mess of it. “I don’t see.”
But even as she stood looking at Jack Denton she was smiling at herself
mentally, to hear how her voice had taken on the very timbre of Elsie’s
when she was being her most unpleasantly polite. What a copy cat she
was. Still, there was a certain satisfaction in finding herself so
successful in a self-made rôle. “All you say is just Greek to me. And I
ought to be writing my letter. Good morning.”
She turned deliberately and sauntered back to her place in the shade of
the orchard. But Jack did not leave the wall. He stayed there watching
her, a frown gathering on his brow. When she was seated, with her back
against an apple tree trunk and her pad ready on her knee, he called
again.
“Oh, I say,” he called. “I thought you knew everything about it all, of
course. If you don’t, it’s a shame. I just can’t be apologetic enough.”
But Kate did not turn to him. “Go away, go away, go away,” she said,
mentally. “I don’t want to hear any more. It’s not for you to unravel
the mystery. I don’t want to know from a stranger. I feel very
indignant. Very, very indignant, and I hardly know why.”
Kate’s silence meant as much to Jack Denton as the thoughts he could not
hear. He turned away and strolled toward the house, swinging his racket
and looking at the ground dejectedly. Kate was sorry she had been so
deliberately rude, but she simply could not call him back. She was too
really indignant, and at the same time unable to analyze her
indignation. She returned to her letter.
But she found it very difficult to write. There was just too much ever
to begin to put on paper, in spite of this being only her third day
here! What she must do was simply tell the _facts_ and let the rest go.
The colour of the facts, all that lay underneath and over them, must
wait. The letter that finally developed was a thin affair, perfunctory
and empty of interest. Kate had never in her life felt so far from her
mother.
The girls and Miss Frazier selected and cut flowers in the garden. They
took them in loosely on their arms and tossed them down on a damp sheet
spread on the floor just inside the drawing-room doors. Then came the
deciding on receptacles and the placing of them. It was all very
interesting, and exciting, too, for as the rooms grew in adornment Kate
felt the party itself drawing nearer and nearer. Miss Frazier seemed
very gay as they worked. She laughed and said whimsical things in a
whimsical manner. And her every touch was deft, and the result artistic.
That morning Kate learned more about colour values and proportion than
she had ever learned in all her years of school. She had not dreamed
that so much _mind_ could be used on such an apparently simple
occupation as placing a few nasturtiums in a vase!
What a good time they were having! Kate moved about the big drawing-room
and hall with almost dancing steps, she was so happy doing her aunt’s
intelligent bidding and seeing loveliness form before her eyes and under
her hand. And Elsie was laughing quite spontaneously at Aunt Katherine’s
humour and taking as much delight as Kate in the growing beauty of the
arrangements.
“Someone to speak to you on the telephone, Miss Frazier.” Isadora had
come out from the telephone booth under the hall stairs.
“Who is it, please? Always get the name, Isadora.”
“Yes, ma’am. I always do when I can. But this gentleman won’t give his
name. Says it’s not necessary. He wants to speak to you on important
business, he says.”
“Won’t give his name! Nonsense! Tell him, then——” But suddenly in the
middle of this command Aunt Katherine’s expression changed. “Oh, well, I
think I know now who it must be. That’s all right, Isadora.”
Aunt Katherine dropped the yellow roses she was sorting—their wet stems
and leaves instantly spreading white spots on to the polished surface of
the little table. With a quick step she hurried toward the telephone
booth. Kate snatched up the roses and remedied the harm they had done as
well as she could with her pocket handkerchief. Then she and Elsie
simply stood idly about waiting for the doors of the telephone booth to
open and their Chieftain to reappear. For having seen Aunt Katherine
work with the flowers they knew themselves incompetent to go ahead
alone.
As Kate leaned against the banister, and Elsie smoothed her hair before
a little gilt mirror on the wall near the door and secured the shell
pins holding it, the front-door bell suddenly rang and Isadora came into
the hall to answer it. A postman in livery standing there thrust a pad
at her mumbling, “Sign here.”
Elsie dropped a shell pin on to the floor and rushed to Isadora. “It’s a
special delivery,” she cried. “For me?”
Yes, it was for Elsie. She almost snatched it out of the postman’s hands
and scrawled her signature on the pad that Isadora surrendered.
“All right,” she said, pushing the pad at the postman and the next
instant shutting the door directly in his face. Had she shoved him out?
Kate was not at all sure she hadn’t.
Then Elsie ran through the hall with the letter hugged up under her chin
and up the stairs past Kate. “Tell Aunt Katherine I’ll be right back,”
she called as she went. But she stopped on the first landing to lean
over the banister and whisper down, “Don’t say anything about my having
had a special delivery, will you, Kate?”
“Of course not, if you don’t want me to. It’s none of my business, is
it?”