THE NEW-COMER
Sue Penrose went home that day feeling, as she had said to Mary, that
something serious had happened. The advent of a stranger, and that
stranger a girl not very far from her own and Mary's age, was indeed a
wonderful thing. Hilton was a quiet village, and it happened that she
and Mary had few friends of their own age. They had never felt the
need of any, being always together from babyhood. Mary would never, it
might be, feel the need; but Sue was always a dreamer of dreams, and
always longed for something new, something different from every-day
pleasures and cares. When the schooners came up the river, in summer,
to load with ice from Mr. Hart's great ice-houses, Sue always longed
to go with them when they sailed. There were little girls on them
sometimes; she had seen them. She had gone so far as to beg Mr. Hart
to let her go as stewardess on board the "Rosy Dawn." She felt that a
voyage on a vessel with such a name must be joy indeed. But Mr. Hart
always laughed at her so, it would have been hard to have patience
with him if he were not so dear and good. She longed to go away on the
trains, too, or to have the pair of cream-colored horses that were the
pride of the livery-stable--to take them and the buckboard, and drive
away, quite away, to new places, where people didn't have their
dresses made over every year, and where they had new things every day
in the shop-windows. Her dreams always took her away from Hilton; for
it seemed impossible that anything new or strange should ever come
there to the sleepy home village. She and Mary had always made their
plays out of books, and so had plenty of excitement in that way; but
Hilton itself was asleep,--her mother said so,--and it would never
wake up. And now, all in a moment, the scene was changed. Here, into
the very village street, had come a stranger--a wonderful girl looking
like a princess, with jewels and gold chains and shimmering silk; and
this girl was going to lead a kind of fairy life at a marvelous place
called a hotel, where the walls were frescoed, and you could make up
stories about them all the time you were eating your dinner; and the
dinner itself was as different as possible from a plain brown leg of
mutton, which Katy would always do over three times in just the same
order: first a pie, then a fricassee, then mincemeat. Katy was so
tiresome! But this girl with the fair hair and the beautiful name
would have surprises three times a day, surprises with silver
covers,--at least, they looked like silver,--and have four kinds of
pie to choose from. And she came from New York! That was perhaps the
most wonderful part of all. Sue sat down on her window-seat, gave a
long sigh, and fell into a dream of New York.
They drove curricles there, glittering curricles like those in books.
(Sue was very fond of books, provided they were "exciting.")
And the houses--well, she knew something about those, of course; she
had heard them described; and of course it was stupid to have them all
alike outside, row upon row of brownstone; but, on the other hand,
perhaps it made the mystery of the inside all the more amazing. To go
in at a plain brown door in a plain brown house, and find--find--oh!
what would not one find? There would be curtains of filmy lace--lace
was always filmy when it was not rich and creamy; well, on the whole,
she would have the curtains rich and creamy, and keep the filmy kind
for something else. And the carpets were crimson, of course, and so
thick your feet sank quite out of sight in them. ("I don't see how you
could run," Sue admitted to herself; "but no matter.") The walls were
"hung," not papered--hung with satin and damask, or else with Spanish
leather, gilded, like those in the Hans Andersen story. Sue had begged
piteously, when her room was done over last year, to have it hung
with gilded Spanish leather. She had quoted to her mother the song
the old hangings sang after they had been there for ages and ages:
"The gilding decays,
But hog's leather stays."
But it made no difference; the room was papered. Sue had chosen the
paper, to be sure, and it was certainly pretty; but--she sighed as she
looked around and fancied the Spanish leather creaking in the wind;
then sank into her dream again.
The rooms, downstairs, at least, were in suites, opening out of each
other in long vistas ("vista" was a lovely word! there were no houses
in Hilton big enough to have vistas, but probably they would have them
at the hotel), with long French windows opening on to velvet lawns--
No! Sue shook herself severely. That was the other kind of house--the
kind that was embosomed in trees, in Miss Yonge's stories. Of course
they wouldn't have French windows in New York; the burglars could get
in. An adventure with a burglar would be terribly exciting, though!
There might be just one French window. Sue's mind hovered for a
moment, tempted to wander into a dream of burglary; but she rejected
it, and went on with the house. The furniture would be just perfectly
fine--rosewood and satinwood, and one room all ebony and pale yellow
satin. You wore a yellow crape dress when you sat there, with--yes;
now came in the filmy lace, lots and lots of it round your snowy neck,
that rose out of it like a dove,--no, like a swan, or a pillar, or
something. Then, upstairs--oh! she hadn't got to upstairs yet, but she
must just take a peep and see the silver bedstead, all hung with pale
blue velvet. Oh, how lovely! And--why, yes, it might be--in the bed
there would be a maiden sleeping, more beautiful than the day. Her
long, fair hair was spread out on the pillow (when Sue was grown up
she was never, never going to braid her hair at night; she was always
going to spread it out), and her nightgown was all lace, every bit,
and the sheets were fine as a cambric handkerchief, and her eyelashes
were black, and so long that they reached half-way down her nose,
like that paper doll Mrs. Hart made. Well, and Sue would go up and
look at her. Oh! if she herself were only a fairy prince in green and
gold, or could change into one just for a little while! But, anyhow,
she would look at the lovely maiden and say:
"Love, if thy tresses be so dark,--"
But these tresses were fair! Well, never mind; she could change that:
"Love, if thy tresses be so fair,
How bright those hidden eyes must be!"
That was really almost as good as the real way. It would be just
lovely to be a poet, and say that kind of thing all the time! Sue
wondered how one began to be a poet; she thought she would try, when
she got through with this. And then the maiden would wake up and say:
"Hallo!" and Sue would say: "Hallo! what's your name?" and she would
say, soft and low, like the wind of the western sea:
"Clarice!" And then they would be friends for life, the dearest
friends in the world--except Mary, of course. But then, Mary was
different. She was the dearest girl that ever was, but there was
nothing romantic about her. Clarice! It was a pity the other name was
Packard! It ought to have been Atherton, or Beaudesert. Clarice
Beaudesert! That was splendid. But Mr. Packard didn't look as if he
belonged to that kind of people. Well, then, when Clarice grew up she
would have to marry some one called Beaudesert--or Clifford. Clarice
Clifford was beautiful! And he would be a lord, of course, because
there was the good Lord Clifford, you know. And--and--well, anyhow,
Clarice would get up, and would thrust her tiny feet into blue velvet
slippers embroidered with pearls (if there had really been fairies,
the very first thing Sue would have asked for would have been small
feet, instead of these great things half a yard long), and throw round
her (they always threw things round them in books, instead of putting
them on) a--let me see--a long robe of pale blue velvet, to match the
bed, and lined with ermine all through; and then she would take Sue
round and show her the rest of the house. That would be perfectly
lovely! And they would tell each other the books they liked best; and
perhaps Clarice would ask her to stay to tea, and then they would sit
down to a small round ebony table, with a snowy cloth,--no; bare would
be finer if it was real ebony,--and glittering with crystal and silver
(they always do that), and with rose-colored candle-shades, and--and--
Tinkle, tinkle! went the dinner-bell. "Oh, dear!" said Sue. "Just as I
was going to have such a delightful feast! And it's mincemeat day,
too. I hate mincemeat day!"
* * * * *
When she was not dreaming, Sue was planning how she could make the
much-desired acquaintance of the new-comer. Mary advised waiting a
little, and said her father was going to call on Mr. Packard, and the
meeting might perhaps come about naturally in that way. But this was
altogether too prosaic for Sue. She must find a way that was not just
plain being introduced; that was stupid and grown-up. She must find a
way of her own, that should belong entirely to her.
Of course, the best thing, the right and proper and story-book thing,
would be for Mr. Packard's horse to run away when only Clarice was in
the carriage. Then Sue could fling herself in the path of the
infuriated animal, and check him in mid-career by the power of her
eye--no; it was lions you did that to. But, anyhow, she could catch
him by the bridle, and hang on, and stop him that way. It didn't sound
so well, but it was more likely. Or if Clarice should fall into the
river, Sue could plunge in and rescue her, swimming with one hand and
upholding the fainting form of the lovely maiden with the other, till,
half-unconscious herself, the youthful heroine reached the bank, and
placed her lovely--no; said that before!--her beauteous burden in the
arms of her distracted parent. Oh, dear, how exciting that would be!
But nobody ever did fall into the river in Hilton, and the horses
never ran away, so it was not to be expected. But there must be some
way; there should be!
So it came to pass that on the Sunday after the Packards' arrival,
Miss Clarice Packard, rustling into her father's pew in all the
conscious glory of a flowered organdie muslin and the biggest hat in
town, found in the corner of the pew something that made her open her
pale blue eyes wider than usual. It was a large heart of red sugar,
tied round with a true-lover's knot of white satin ribbon. Looking
round, she became aware of a pair of eyes fixed eagerly on her, the
brightest eyes she had ever seen. They belonged to a little
girl--well, not so very little, either; rather a tall girl, on the
whole, but evidently very young--sitting across the aisle. This girl
was ridiculously dressed, Miss Packard thought, with no style at all
about her; and yet, somehow--well, she was pretty, certainly. It
seemed to be one of the best pews in the church. Her mother--that must
be her mother--was "real stylish," certainly, though her gown was too
plain; and, after all, the girl had style, too, in her way. It would
be nice to have some one to speak to in this dreadful, poky little
place that "Puppa" would insist on bringing her to. The idea of his
not trusting her to stay alone at the boarding-house! Clarice had
wept tears of vexation at being "cruelly forced," as she said, to
come with her father to Hilton. She had called it a hole, and a
desert, and everything else that her rather scanty vocabulary could
afford. But now, here was a pretty little girl, who looked as if she
were somebody, evidently courting her acquaintance. There was no
mistaking the eager, imploring gaze of the clear hazel eyes. Clarice
nodded slightly, and smiled. The younger girl flushed all over, and
her face seemed to quiver with light in a way different from anything
Clarice had ever seen. There might be some fun here, after all, if she
had a nice little friend who would adore her, and listen to all her
stories, which the other girls were sometimes disagreeable about.
[Illustration: "MISS CLARICE PACKARD RUSTLED INTO HER FATHER'S PEW."]
Two people in church, that Sunday, heard little of the excellent
sermon. Sue could not even take her usual interest in the great east
window, which was generally her mainstay through the parts of the
sermon she could not follow. To begin with, there were the figures
that made the story; but these were so clear and simple that they
really said less, when once one knew the story by heart, than some
other features. There were the eight blue scrolls that looked almost
exactly like knights' helmets; and when you looked at them the right
way, the round blue dots underneath made the knights' eyes; and there
you had them, all ready for tournaments or anything. Scruples of
conscience obliged Sue to have them always Templars or Knights of
Malta, and they only fought against infidels. One of the knights had
lost an eye; and the number of ways and places in which he had lost it
was amazing: Saladin had run a lance into it at Acre; he had been
tilting, just for fun, with Tancred, and Tancred hit him by mistake
and put his eye out; and so on and so on. Then, there were the jewels,
high up in the window; the small, splendid spots of ruby and violet
and gold, which Sue was in the habit of taking out and making into
jewels for her own adornment. The tiara of rubies, the long, dangling
ear-rings of crystal set in gold, the necklace of sapphires--how often
had she worn them to heart's content! And to-day she did, indeed, make
use of them, but it was to adorn her new beauty, her new friend. She
would bring them all to Clarice! She would put the tiara on her head,
and clasp the necklace round her slender neck, and say, "All is
yours!" And then she, Sue, would go by dale and would go by down with
a single rose in her hair, just like Lady Clare; but Clarice would
call her back and say: "Beloved, let us share our jewels and our
joys!"
Oh! Sue quivered at the thought, and looked so brightly and earnestly
at the minister that the good old man was surprised and pleased, and
said to himself that he should hardly have supposed his comments on
Ezra would so impress even the young and, comparatively speaking,
thoughtless!
When Clarice Packard came out of church, she found her would-be
acquaintance dimpling and quivering on the door-step.
"Hallo!" said Clarice, with kind condescension, just exactly as she
had done when Sue waked her up, in the dream!
"Hallo!" whispered Sue, in a rapturous whisper. This, she told
herself, was the great moment of her life. Till now she had been a
child; now she was--she did not stop to explain what, and it might
have been difficult.
"Did you put this in my pew?" the new-comer went on, secretly
displaying the sugar heart. Sue nodded, but could not trust herself to
speak.
"It was just perfectly sweet of you!" said Clarice. "I'm real glad to
have somebody to speak to; I was feeling real homesick."
Sue was dimly conscious that it was not good English to say "real" in
that way; but perhaps people did say it in New York; and in any case,
she could not stop to think of such trifles. She was in a glow of
delight; and when Clarice asked her to walk down the street with her,
the cup of happiness seemed brimming over. She, Sue Penrose, who had
never in her life been out of Hilton, except now and then to go to
Chester, the neighboring town--she was the one chosen by this
wonderful stranger, this glittering princess from afar, to walk with
her.
Sue did not see Mary at first. At length she became aware of her,
gazing in wonder, and she gave a little quick, rapturous nod. There
was no time to explain. She could only catch Mary's hand, in passing,
and give it a squeeze, accompanied by a look of intense, dramatic
significance. Mary would see, would understand.
Of course Mary would share her treasure, her new joy, sooner or later;
but just now she could not surrender it to any one, not even to Mary.
As Clarice passed her arm through hers, Sue straightened her slight
figure, and looked as if the world were at her feet. And so they
passed down the street; and Mary, left alone for the first time since
she could remember, stood in the church porch and looked after them.