So it came about quite naturally that the little unknown cousin of the
Melroses was made a familiar figure in their different family groups,
and friends of the house grew accustomed to finding pretty little Norma
Sheridan lunching with Leslie, reading beside Alice's couch in the late
summer afternoons, or amusing and delighting the old head of the family
in a hundred charming ways. Norma called Mrs. Melrose "Aunt Marianna"
now, as Chris and Acton did. She did not understand the miracle, it
remained a marvel still, but it was enough that it continued to deepen
and spread with every enchanted hour.
She had longed--what girl in Biretta's Bookstore did not?--to be rich,
and to move and have her being "in society." And now she had her wish, a
hundred times fulfilled, and of course she was utterly and absolutely
happy.
That is, except for the momentary embarrassments and jealousies and
uncertainties, and for sometimes being bored, she thought that she might
consider herself happy. And there were crumpled rose-leaves everywhere!
she reminded herself sternly. She--Norma Sheridan--could spend more
money upon the single item of shoes, for example, than Miss Smith, head
of Biretta's Bookshop, could earn in a whole long year of hot months and
cold, of weary days and headachy days.
That part of it was "fun", she admitted to herself. The clothes were
fun, the boxes and boxes and boxes that came home for her, the
petticoats and stockings, the nightgowns heavy with filet lace, and the
rough boots for tramping and driving, and the silk and satin slippers
for the house. Nothing disappointing there! Norma never would forget the
ecstasies of those first shopping trips with Aunt Marianna. Did she want
them?--the beaded bag, the woolly scarf, the little saucy hat, were all
to be sent to Miss Sheridan, please. Norma lost her breath, and laughed,
and caught it again and lost it afresh. They had so quickly dropped the
little pretence that she was to make herself useful, these wonderful and
generous Melroses; they had so soon forgotten everything except that she
was Leslie's age, and to be petted and spoiled as if she had been
another Leslie!
And now, after more than half a year, she knew that they liked her; that
all of them liked her in their varying degrees. Old Mrs. Melrose and
Alice--Mrs. Christopher Liggett--were most warmly her champions,
perhaps, but Leslie was too unformed a character to be definitely
hostile, and the little earlier jealousies and misunderstandings were
blown away long ago, and even the awe-inspiring Annie had shown a real
friendliness of late. Acton Liggett and Hendrick von Behrens were always
kind and admiring, and Norma had swiftly captivated Annie's little boys.
But of them all, she still liked Chris Liggett the best, and felt
nearest Chris even when he scolded her, or hurt her feelings with his
frank advice. And she knew that Chris thoroughly liked her, in spite of
the mistakes that she was continually making, and the absurd ways in
which her ignorance and strangeness still occasionally betrayed her.
It had been a time full of mistakes, of course. Chris often told her
that she had more brains in her little finger than most of the girls of
her set had in their whole bodies, but that had not saved her. If she
was pretty, they were all pretty, too. If she wore beautiful clothes,
they wore clothes just as beautiful, and with more assurance. If her wit
was quick, and her common sense and human experience far greater than
theirs, these were just the qualities they neither needed nor trusted.
They spoke their own language, the language of youthful arrogance and
ignorance, the language of mutual compliments and small personalities,
and Norma could not speak this tongue any more than she could join them
when they broke easily into French or German or Italian. She could ride,
because she was not afraid of the mild-mannered cobs that were used at
the riding school and in the park, but she knew little of correct
posture and proper handling of reins. She could swim, as Wolf had taught
her, in the old river years ago, but she knew nothing of the terms and
affectations of properly taught swimming. When she went to see Aunt
Kate, she was almost ashamed of the splendour of her clothing and the
utter luxury of the life she led, but with Leslie and her friends she
often felt herself what perhaps they thought her, an insignificant
little poor relation of the Melroses, who had appeared from nobody knew
where, and might return unchallenged at any moment to her original
obscurity.
This phase of the new life was disappointing, and Norma realized herself
that she spent a quite disproportionate amount of time in thinking about
it. Wasn't it enough, she would ask herself impatiently, to be one of
them at all, to see one's picture in the fashionable weeklies, as a
member of the family, at the Liggett-Melrose wedding; to have clothes
and motor-cars, and a bedroom that was like a picture; to know Newport
at first-hand; to have cruised for a week in the Craigies' yacht, and
have driven to Quebec and back in the Von Behrens' car? A year ago, she
reminded herself, it would have seemed Paradise to have had even a
week's freedom from the bookshop; now, she need never step into
Biretta's again!
But it was not enough, and Norma would come impatiently to the end of
her pondering with the same fretted sense of dissatisfaction. It was not
enough to be tremulously praised by old Aunt Marianna, to be joked by
Chris, greeted by Alice, his wife, with a friendly smile. Norma wanted
to belong to this life, to be admired and sought by Leslie, rather than
endured; to have the same easy familiarity with Duers, and Alexanders,
and Rutgers that Leslie had.
As was quite natural, she and Leslie had eyed each other, from the very
beginning, somewhat as rivals. But Leslie, even then preparing for her
marriage, had so obviously held all the advantages, that her vague
resentment and curiosity concerning the family's treatment of the
unknown newcomer were brief. If Aunt Alice liked Norma to come in and
talk books and write notes, if Chris chose to be gallant, if Grandma
lavished an unusual affection upon this new protégée, well, it robbed
Leslie of nothing, after all.
But with Norma it was different. She was brought into sharp contact with
another girl, only slightly her senior, who had everything that this new
turn of fortune had given Norma herself, and a thousand times more.
Norma saw older women, the important and influential matrons of the
social world, paying court to the promised wife of Acton Liggett. Norma
knew that while Alice and Chris were always attentive to her own little
affairs, the solving of Leslie's problems they regarded as their own
sacred obligation. Norma had hours and hours of this new enchanting
leisure to fill; she could be at anybody's beck and call. But Leslie,
she saw, was only too busy. Everybody was claiming Leslie; she was
needed in forty places at once; she must fly from one obligation to
another, and be thanked for sparing just a few minutes here and there
from her crowded days.
Mrs. Melrose had immediately made Norma an allowance, an allowance so
big that when Norma first told Aunt Kate about it, it was with a sense
of shame. Norma had her check-book, and need ask nobody for spending
money. More than that her generous old patron insisted that she use all
the family charge accounts freely: "You mustn't think of paying in any
shop!" said Aunt Marianna and Aunt Alice, earnestly.
But Leslie was immensely rich in her own right. The hour in which Norma
realized this was one of real wretchedness. Chris was her innocent
informant.
It was only two or three days before the wedding, a warm day of rustling
leaves and moving shadows, in late May. The united families were still
in town, but plans for escape to the country were made for the very day
after the event. Norma had been fighting a little sense of hurt pride
because she was not to be included among Leslie's wedding attendants.
She knew that Aunt Marianna had suggested it to Leslie, some weeks
before, and that the bride had quite justifiably reminded her
grandmother that the eight maids, the special maid and matron of honour,
and the two little pages, had all been already asked to perform their
little service of affection, and that a readjustment now would be
difficult. So Norma had been excluded from the luncheons, the
discussions of frocks and bouquets, and the final exciting rehearsals in
the big Park Avenue church.
She had chanced to be thinking of all these things on the day when Chris
made a casual allusion to "needing" Leslie.
"The poor kid has got a stupid morning coming to-morrow, I'm afraid!" he
had said, adding, in answer to Norma's raised eyebrows, "Business. She
has to sign some papers, and alter her will--and I want all that done
before they go away!"
"Has Leslie a will?" Norma had asked.
"My child, what did you suppose she had? Leslie inherited practically
all of her Grandfather Melrose's estate. At least, her father, Theodore,
did, and Leslie gets it direct through him. Of course your Aunt Annie
got her slice, and my wife hers, but the bulk was left to the son. Poor
Teddy! he didn't get much out of it. But during her minority the
executors--of which I happen to be one--almost doubled it for Leslie.
And to-morrow Judge Lee and I have got to go over certain matters with
her."
He had been idling at the piano, while Alice dozed in the heat, and
Norma played with a magazine. Now he had turned back to his music, and
Norma had apparently resumed her reading. But she really had been shaken
by a storm of passionate jealousy.
Jealousy is in its nature selfish, and the old Norma of Aunt Kate's
little group had not been a selfish girl. But Norma had had a few weeks
now of a world governed by a different standard. There was no necessity
here, none of the pure beauty of sacrifice and service and
insufficiency. This was a world of superfluities, a standard of excess.
To have merely meals, clothing, comfort, and ease was not enough here.
All these must be had in superabundance, and she was the best woman and
the happiest who had gowns she could not wear, jewels lying idle, money
stored away in banks, and servants standing about uselessly for hours,
that the momentary needs of them might be instantly met.
The poison of this creed had reached Norma, in spite of herself. She was
young, and she had always been beloved in her own group for what she
honestly gave of cheer and service and friendship. It hurt her that
nobody needed what she could give now, and she hated the very memory of
Leslie's wedding.
But when that was over, Mrs. Melrose had taken her to Newport, whither
Alice was carefully moved every June. Leslie was gone now, and Norma
free from pricking reminders of her supremacy, and as old friends of
Mrs. Melrose began to include her in the summer's merrymaking, she had
some happy times. But even here the cloven hoof intruded.
Norma had always imagined this group as being full of friendly women and
admiring men, as offering her a hundred friendships where the old life
had offered one. She discovered slowly, and with pained surprise, that
although there were plenty of girls, they were not especially anxious
for intimacy with her, and that the men she met were not, somehow,
"real." They were absorbed in amusement, polo and yachting, they moved
about a great deal, and they neither had, nor desired to have, any
genuine work or interest in life. She began to see Leslie's wisdom in
making an early and suitable marriage. As a matron, Leslie was
established; she could entertain, she had dignified duties and
interests, and while Norma felt awkward and bashful in asking young men
to dine with Aunt Marianna, Acton brought his friends to his home, and
Leslie had her girl friends there, and the whole thing was infinitely
simpler and pleasanter.