"CINDERELLA"
LLOYD sat on the window-seat of the stair-landing, looking out on the
bare February landscape. She was thinking of the poem she had learned
three weeks before, on the afternoon of Miss Sarah's visit, and it made
her dissatisfied. When one was all a-tingle, as she had been, with a
high purpose to help ease the burden of the world and make undying music
in it, and when one longed to do big, heroic deeds and had ambitions
high enough to reach the stars, it was hard to be content with the
commonplace opportunities that came her way.
The things she had been doing seemed so paltry. To carry a glass of
jelly to the Crisps, a pot of pink hyacinths to Miss Marietta, to write
a letter for Aunt Cindy, to sit for an hour with Mrs. Bisbee,--these all
were so trivial and pitifully small that she felt a sense of disgust
with herself and her efforts. Yawning and swinging her foot, she sat in
the window-seat several minutes longer, then started aimlessly
up-stairs to her room. In the upper hall the door leading into the attic
stairway stood open, and for no reason save that she had nothing else to
do, she began to mount the steps. She had not been up in the attic since
Christmas week, when she and Rob had gone to finish his Christmas hunt.
She stood looking around her an instant, then, moved by some
unaccountable impulse, drew out the chest containing the fancy-dress
costumes they had used in so many plays and tableaux. One by one she
shook them out and hung them over Rob's headless hobby-horse, when she
had finished examining them. There were the velvet knickerbockers and
blouse she had worn as Little Boy Blue at the Hallowe'en party at the
Seminary. There was Betty's Dresden Shepherdess dress, and the
godmother's gown, and the long trailing robe of the Princess Winsome.
Even the little tulle dress she had worn as the Queen of Hearts at
Ginger's Valentine party, years ago, came out of the chest as she dived
deeper into its contents, and a star-spangled costume of red, white, and
blue, in which she had fluttered as the Goddess of Liberty one Fourth of
July.
Slippers and buckles and plumes, fans and gloves and artificial
flowers, were piled up all around her. The hobby-horse was hidden under
a drapery of velvet and lace and silk. Still the chest held a number of
old party gowns that had never been cut down to fit their childish
revels.
As Lloyd shook them out, thinking of the gay scenes they had been a part
of, the picture of Agnes Waring in her worn jacket and shabby shoes
flashed across her mind, followed by Mrs. Bisbee's remark: "She's never
had any of the pleasures that most girls have. Twenty-five years old,
and to my certain knowledge she's never had a beau or been to a big
party, or travelled farther than Louisville."
Lloyd pressed her lips together and stood staring at the old finery
around her, thinking hard. A sudden vision had come to her of this
modern Cinderella, and of herself as the fairy godmother. Her eyes shone
and her cheeks grew pink as she stood pondering. If she could only make
an occasion, it would be easy enough to provide the coach and the
costume, even the glass slippers. There lay a pair of white satin ones,
beaded in tiny crystal beads that shone like dewdrops. Suppose she
should play godmother and send Agnes to a ball. Suppose the shy, timid
girl should look so fine in her fine feathers that people would stare
at her and wonder who that beautiful creature was. Suppose a prince
should be there who never would have noticed her but for the magic glass
slippers, and then suppose--
Lloyd did not put the rest of the delightful daydream into words, but
just stood thinking about it a long time, until her expression grew very
sweet and tender over a little romance which she dreamed might grow out
of her plan to give Agnes pleasure.
"If I only had thought of it in time to have had a Valentine pah'ty,"
she exclaimed aloud, "that would have been the very thing. But it is too
late now. This is the seventeenth." Then she clasped her hands
delightedly as that date suggested another. "It is five days till
Washington's Birthday. Maybe there will be time to get up a Martha
Washington affair. I'll ask Miss Allison about it this very night at
choir practice. She always has so many new ideas."
Tumbling the costumes back into the trunk, helter-skelter, she danced
down the stairs, impatient to tell her mother about it. But there were
guests in the library who had been invited to spend the afternoon and
stay to dinner, and Lloyd had no opportunity to speak of the subject
that was uppermost in her thoughts. Immediately after dinner she
excused herself, to slip into her red coat and furs, while Mom Beck
lighted the lantern they were to carry.
It was only a short distance to the Mallard place, where the choir was
to meet that week, so they did not need Alec's escort this time. The
wind flared their lantern as they went along the quiet country road.
They could see other lights bobbing along toward them, and, as they
neared the gate, Lloyd recognized Mrs. Walton's voice. She and Miss
Allison were coming up with their brother Harry.
"Is that you, Lloyd?" called Mrs. Walton, as they drew nearer. "I hoped
you would come early, for I have a letter from the girls that I know you
will want to read. They are full of preparations for a grand affair to
be given on the twenty-second,--a Martha Washington reception. As usual,
Kitty wants to depart from the accustomed order of things, and have a
costume in George's honour, instead of Martha's. She says why not, as
long as it is his birthday. She's painted a picture of the dress she has
concocted for the occasion. It is green tarlatan dotted all over with
little silver paper hatchets, and trimmed with garlands and bunches of
artificial cherries."
"Oh, I'm so glad you brought the pictuah with you to-night!" exclaimed
Lloyd. "And I'm wild to see the lettah. Kitty always writes such funny
ones. And I'm glad I met you out heah befoah the choir practice begins.
I want to ask you about a celebration I have been planning. It's for
Agnes Waring," she explained, catching step with them as they turned in
at the gate. "So of co'se I can't talk about it befoah all the othah
people.
"I happened to be looking ovah a chest of old costumes to-day, thinking
of all the fun we'd had in them, when I remembahed her and what Mrs.
Bisbee had told me about her nevah having good times like othah girls.
She said she'd nevah had any attention, and nevah been to a big pah'ty.
I thought I'd like to give her one on the twenty-second, because I could
offah her a costume then without hurting her feelings. I was suah that
you and Miss Allison could suggest something moah than I had thought of.
I don't know exactly how to begin. People will think it strange, and
Agnes might, too, if I gave a pah'ty just for her, when all her friends
whom I would want to invite are so much oldah than I."
Miss Allison and her sister exchanged glances in the lantern-light, then
Mrs. Walton said, hesitatingly: "Why--I don't know--I'm sorry, Lloyd,
that we didn't know before. We've already made plans which I am afraid
will interfere with yours. The King's Daughters' Circle has arranged to
have an oyster supper at my house on the afternoon and evening of the
twenty-second. Most of the people you would want to ask will be busy
there, for everybody in the Valley lends a hand at these
entertainments."
They could not see the disappointment that shadowed Lloyd's face as she
listened to this announcement in silence. But Miss Allison knew it was
there, and, as they walked on up the path together, she slipped her arm
around Lloyd's waist.
"Never mind, dear," she said. "You shall not have your beautiful plan
spoiled by the old oyster supper. We'll combine forces. As Agnes is a
member of the Circle, maybe you can bring about what you want more
naturally and easily this way than in any other. The girls who are to
wait on the table are to powder their hair and wear white kerchiefs and
Martha Washington caps. But we had intended to ask you to take charge of
the fancy-work table, as you have more time for getting up elaborate
costumes. We wanted to ask you to dress in as handsome a costume of that
period as you could find. We remember what lovely brocade gowns and
quilted petticoats and old-fashioned fol-de-rols used to be laid away in
your grandmother's attic that belonged to _her_ grandmother. If you
like, you may give your place to Agnes, and let her be the belle of the
ball."
Lloyd returned the pressure of the arm about her with an impulsive hug.
"Oh, I _knew_ you'd think of something perfectly lovely," she cried.
"That would be much the best way, for she is so timid and quiet you
couldn't keep her from being a wall-flowah at an ordinary pah'ty. But
this way she will have something to do, and she'll have to talk when
people come to buy things. I wish it were not so long till to-morrow! I
want to tell her about it this minute."
Usually the choir practice was a bore to Lloyd. She was one of the few
members who sang by note, and Mrs. Walton, the leader, had to take them
through the simple anthems over and over again, until they caught the
tune by ear. Lloyd, knowing that her strong young voice was needed, sang
dutifully through the tiresome repetitions, but sometimes she wanted to
put her fingers in her ears to shut out the sound. To-night she did not
chafe inwardly at the false starts and the monotonous chant, "Oh, be
thankful! Oh, be thankful!" which had to be sung over numberless times
in order that the bass and alto singers might learn to come in at the
proper places with their responsive refrain. She was so absorbed in
thinking of the pleasure in store for Agnes, and imagining what she
would say, that she sang the three measures over and over, unheeding how
long the choir stuck there, or uncaring how many times they seesawed up
and down on the same tiresome notes.
The excitement began for Agnes next day, when Lloyd delivered Miss
Allison's invitation, and bore her away in the carriage to search
through the attic for a costume. She had never been farther than the
door at Locust. Her journeys thither had been to carry home some
finished garment. But many an hour of patient sewing had been brightened
by her sisters' tales of the place. Both Miss Sarah and Miss Marietta
remembered it affectionately, for the sake of the woman who had welcomed
them there on so many happy occasions in the past.
Agnes thought she knew just how the interior of Locust would look,
especially the stately old drawing-room, with its portraits and candles,
its harp and the faint odour of rose-leaves; and really there was
something familiar to her in its appearance as she caught a glimpse of
it on her way up-stairs to Lloyd's room. But she had never imagined such
a dainty rose of a room as the pink and white bower Lloyd led her into.
There might have been a throb of resentment that all such beauty and
luxury had been left out of her life, if there had been time for her to
look around and compare it with her own scantily furnished room at home.
Lloyd hurried over to the bed, eager to display a gorgeous brocade gown
of rose and silver laid out there, which Mrs. Sherman had brought down
from the attic in her absence, and from which Mom Beck had pressed all
the wrinkles.
"It's as good as new," said Lloyd. "I'm glad that mothah wouldn't let us
cut it up last yeah, when we wanted to make it fit Katie. There are pink
slippahs to match, but I hoped you'd rathah weah these. They make me
think of Cinderella's glass ones, and they're twice as pretty."
She tossed the crystal beaded slippers over to Agnes for her inspection.
"Try them on," she urged. "I want to see how you'll look."
In a few moments the shabby shoes and the old brown dress lay in a heap
on the floor like a discarded chrysalis, and Agnes stepped out, a
dazzled butterfly, in her gorgeous robes of rose and silver.
Lloyd clasped her hands ecstatically. "Oh, Agnes, it's _lovely_! And
it's almost a perfect fit. If Miss Sarah can just take it up a little on
the shouldahs, and change the collah a tiny bit, it will look as if it
were made for you. When yoah hair is powdahed and you have this little
bunch of plumes in it, you'll be simply perfect. It doesn't mattah if
the slippahs do pinch a little. They look so pretty you can stand a
little thing like that for one evening."
Lloyd walked around and around her, till she had admired her to her
heart's content, and then led her away to show to Mrs. Sherman. "You
ought to carry yoah head that way all the time," she said. "It's
becoming to you to 'walk proud,' as old Mammy Easter used to say."
It was with the air of a duchess that Agnes sailed into the
drawing-room, and with the feeling that at last she had come into her
own. On every side the dim old mirrors flashed back the reflection of
the slender figure with its head proudly high. She looked at it
curiously, scarcely recognizing the delicate, high-bred features for her
own. There was colour in her face for one thing. The dull browns and
grays, which she wore for economy's sake, were apt to make her look
sallow. But this wonderful rose-pink lent a glow to her cheeks, and
pleasure and expectancy brightened her eyes, and left her a-tingle with
these new sensations.
"You'll be the feature of the occasion," Mrs. Sherman assured her. "Come
up to lunch with us Thursday. We'll powder your hair and help you dress,
and take you down in the carriage with us. Tell your sisters that we'll
see that you get home safely that night."
So to the other pleasures of the twenty-second was added the
undreamed-of delight of being invited out to lunch, and forgetting for
awhile that there were such tiresome things in the world as
sewing-machines and endless ruffling for other people. Although she wore
her old brown dress, darned at the elbows, and, with her usual timidity,
scarcely ventured a remark at the table unless directly questioned, she
was all aglow with the new experience.
Afterward it was easy to talk and laugh with Lloyd, as they went through
the conservatory cutting the flowers which were to decorate the tables
at The Beeches. Hyacinths and lilies-of-the-valley made a spring-time of
their own under the sheltering skylight. Agnes bent over them with a cry
of delight. "They make you forget the calendar, don't they?" she said,
looking shyly up at Lloyd. She wanted to add, "And so do you. You make
me forget that I am ten years older than you. It seems only pussy-willow
time by my feelings to-day." But their friendship was too new as yet for
such personal speeches.
As they went back to the drawing-room with a basket piled full of
hothouse blooms, Mrs. Sherman called to Lloyd that she needed her
up-stairs a few moments. Hastily excusing herself, she left Agnes with a
new magazine for her entertainment. When she came down later, the
magazine was lying uncut on the table, and Agnes, seated in front of the
piano, was fingering the keys with light touches which made no sound,
they pressed the ivory so gently. She started guiltily as Lloyd came in.
"I couldn't help it!" she stammered. "It drew me over here like a
magnet. It has been the dream of my life to know how to play, but it is
all such a mystery. I've puzzled over the music in the hymn-book many a
time, the little notes flying up and down like birds through a fence,
and then watched Miss Allison's fingers on the organ keys, going up and
down the same way."
"It is just as easy as reading the alphabet," said Lloyd. "I'll show
you. Wait till I find my old music primer. It is somewhere in this
cabinet."
Hastily turning over the exercise books and worn sheets of music that
filled one of the lower shelves, she dragged out an old dog-eared
instruction book, which she propped up on the rack in front of Agnes.
"Heah," she said, pointing to a note. "When one of those little birds,
as you call them, perches on this place on the fence, then you're to
strike the A key on the piano. If it lights on the line just above it,
then you strike the next key, B. See?" She ran her fingers lightly up
the octavo and began again with A. Agnes leaned hungrily over the page,
reading the printed directions below each simple measure, where the
fingering was plainly marked.
"Oh, I could learn to do it by studying this!" she cried, her face all
alight. "I am sure I could. I don't mean that I could ever learn to play
as you do, or Miss Allison, but I could learn simple things and the
accompaniments to old songs that Marietta loves. It would be almost as
great a joy to her and sister Sarah as it would to me, for my learning
to play has always been one of our favourite air-castles. If you could
loan me this instruction book for awhile--" She hesitated.
"Of co'se!" cried Lloyd, thrilled by the eagerness of the eyes which met
hers. "I'll give you a lesson right now, if you like. I'll teach you a
set of chords you can use for an accompaniment. They are so easy you can
learn them befoah you go home, and you can surprise Miss Marietta by
singing and playing for her. They fit evah so many of the ballads."
Turning the leaves of the instructor, she found the simple chords of
"Annie Laurie," and wrote beside each note the letters that would enable
Agnes to find them on the keyboard. "This isn't the right way to begin,"
she said, with a laugh, "but we'll take this short cut just to surprise
Miss Marietta. You can come back aftahward and learn about time and all
the othah things that ought to come first. I'll give you a lesson every
week for awhile, if you like."
The eyes that met hers now were brimming with happy tears.
"If I like," Agnes repeated, with a tremulous catch of the voice. "As if
I wouldn't jump at the chance to have the key to paradise put into my
hands. It's the happiest thing that ever happened to me."
With her heart as well as her whole attention given to the effort, it
was not long before Agnes found her fingers falling naturally into
place, and she played the chords over and over, humming the tune softly,
with a pleasure that was pathetic to Lloyd.
"Oh, I could keep on all day and all night!" exclaimed Agnes, when Mrs.
Sherman called to them that it was time to dress. "I've never been so
happy in all my life! You don't know what it means to me!" she cried,
turning a radiant face to Lloyd's. "You've lifted me clear off the
earth. I wish I could run home before the reception begins and play this
for Marietta. I want to see her face when I open the old piano."
Lloyd followed her up the stairs, wondering at the girl's uplifted mood.
She did not see how such a trifle could bring about such a
transformation in any one's spirits, not realizing that this bit of
knowledge which Agnes had picked up was to her a veritable key which
would open the door she had longed for years to enter.
When Agnes swept into the house at The Beeches, she was in such high
spirits that people looked twice to be sure that they knew the radiant
girl presiding so gaily over the fancy-work table.
"She is actually talking," Miss McGill whispered to Libbie Simms.
"Talking and laughing and making jokes like other girls. Somebody has
surely worked a hoodoo charm on her."
But happiness was the only hoodoo, and, under its expanding influence,
she fairly bloomed that night. Lloyd, hovering near her, jubilant over
the success of her popular Cinderella, beamed and dimpled with pleasure,
and stored away the many compliments she overheard, to repeat to Agnes
next day. Once she darted into the butler's pantry, where Miss Allison
was slicing cake, to announce, in an excited whisper: "Agnes has
actually had three invitations to suppah. She's gone in now with Mistah
John Bond. I must run back and take charge of the sales, but I just had
to tell you. Do peep in and see her there at the cawnah table, eating
ice-cream and talking away as if she'd been used to such attentions all
her life. Isn't it great? Now people can't shake their heads and say
poah girl, she's nevah had any attentions like othah girls. Nobody takes
any interest in her."
Miss Allison turned to give Lloyd's cheek a playful pinch. "You dear
little fairy godmother! All Cranford will take an interest in her, now
that she has blossomed out so unexpectedly. Even old Mr. Wade, who never
says nice things about any one, asked me who our distinguished-looking
guest was, and, when I told him Agnes Waring, he fairly gasped and
dropped his eye-glasses. Then he gave his usual contemptuous sniff that
always makes me want to shake him, and walked away, saying: 'Who'd have
thought it! Well, well, fine feathers certainly do make fine birds!'"
Lloyd hurried back to her place behind the fancy-work table. Nearly
every one was out in the room where supper was being served, and except
for an occasional question from some one who strolled by to ask the
price of a laundry-bag or a hemstitched centrepiece, no one disturbed
her. To the music of mandolin, guitar, and piano, played softly behind
the palms in one corner, she went on with her pleasing day-dreams for
Agnes. She would make other opportunities for her next week, take her in
town to a concert or a matinee. She wished she could offer her clothes,
but she dared not take that step. There would be the Waring pride to
reckon with if she did.
In the midst of this reverie, Agnes came up all a-flutter, saying,
shyly: "Lloyd, would you mind if I didn't go back in the carriage with
you? Your mother wouldn't think it strange, would she? It was because I
had no other way to get home that she invited me. But Mr. Bond has
asked to take me home behind his new team. He wants me to see what fine
travellers his horses are."
"Of co'se mothah wouldn't think it strange!" exclaimed Lloyd.
"Especially if it is Mistah Bond who wants to take you. She and Papa
Jack are so fond of him."
"He wants me to join the choir," Agnes went on, in a lower tone, as a
group of people crowded around the table. "Mrs. Walton and Mrs. Mallard
and Miss Flora Marks have asked me also. I've pinched myself black and
blue this evening, trying to make sure that I am awake. Oh, Lloyd,
you'll never, never know how I have enjoyed it all."
There was no time for further conversation then. People were beginning
to leave, and were crowding around the table to claim the articles they
had purchased earlier in the evening. But it was not necessary for Agnes
to repeat that she was radiantly happy. It showed in every word and
laugh and gesture. Lloyd went home that night nearer to the Castle of
Content than she had been for many weeks.