THE QUEST OF A TWEED COAT
With aunt and uncle safely ensconced on the side porch, between books
and papers enough to hold their attention for a considerable time, Glory
proceeded to “dig up the fun.”
“I’ll play I’m Hazel,” she decided, “although I hope no one asks me to
supply the wonderful voice.” An original trill demonstrated why.
The blinds were closely drawn, and the Morningside room seemed a safe
enough place for her exploit.
“Here, Tobias,” she ordered, “you can’t stay. You might scratch
something or upset a cushion. Skiddoo!”
Reluctantly the big cat went out and again the door was silently closed.
“Every sort of make-up,” ruminated the girl. “I may as well be very
pretty while I’m about it.”
What Trixy called the “tools” were found in a corner of the small side
drawer of the dressing table, and along with them was a collection of
various shades of powders, tints and even paste, the like of which
Gloria had never before encountered.
They were fascinating. She daubed on white—all around her ears and over
her nose, then she perfectly white-washed her nose, although she laughed
so heartily, (if she did have to take it out in chuckles,) that a shower
of the powder came down almost into her mouth.
Putting on the lip stuff was more serious. It took both courage and
invention to find out how to do that, and the girl with the inhuman
pallor was not sure at all that she was coming anywhere near the mark.
“I know how to do the cheeks,” she decided, “for we had lots of paint on
at the last school play.” With that assurance she described a red
circle, then a full moon on each cheek, ending with a dab on her chin.
She had seen someone do that.
“Of course Hazel only does this when she sings, I suppose,” Gloria was
charitable enough to guess. “But I should think she would have to take
lessons to learn how to apply all that stuff; like a landscape.”
The tiny brushes for the eyebrows she put aside without attempting to
apply them to her naturally long, curly lashes, and when she finally had
her hair puffed out at the ears, and turned up at the back and finished
the coiffeur with a great belt pin, she gazed at the girl in the mirror
with wonder and fascination.
“I don’t blame them,” she was thinking. “It’s wonderful to look like
somebody else.”
From its own particular hook she slipped the most gorgeous coral
velveteen robe, evidently Hazel was not allowed to take such finery to
boarding school, for this was too pretty to relinquish, otherwise. The
dark flash in Gloria’s eyes responded beautifully to the glow of the
coral, and with her own slippers—the red felts Jane had given her, she
capered around, swishing her long sash and doing a dance not yet done
publicly. It was original, and decidedly novel, to say the least. She
was having a wonderful time, forgot all her loneliness and almost forgot
it was Sunday. After all, it is the best gift of Heaven to be a girl, to
be able to forget trouble, and to have hope so imbedded in one’s nature
that nothing short of Heaven’s own weapons can crush it.
“If only Millie could see me,” mused Gloria.
Then she thought of Tommy, not that she ever forgot any of her friends
for long, but with the new school and its consequent companions, those
out on Barbend seem quite a distant away from her.
Very carefully she switched on the light. Everything looked better in
the electric glow, and now she tried several new poses. She liked the
coral velveteen, she liked her hair high, and she liked the “canned
complexion.” Twisting her face until her dimples cracked under the
enamel, she even talked to herself in the most elegant and theatrical
manner.
Suddenly she heard a commotion downstairs. Her plight dawned upon her
with something of a shock.
Suppose they should call her! She would not answer, she could not answer
until she had—
How could she get all that stuff off!
Voices! Coming up!
“Why, Hazel! This is a surprise!”
“Hazel!” gasped the frightened girl. “What ever shall I do!” She was
trying to get out of the robe, she had switched off the lights, and the
voices were now at the very door!
“I just had a chance to ride out” (this was Hazel’s voice) “and so I
grabbed it. You have no idea how strict they are. One would think we
were in a convent.” Deprecation akin to scorn.
“Gloria is here,” said Mrs. Towers, in a resigned voice.
“Oh—yes.” This short sentence was not uttered with any gasp of delight,
but Hazel drawled it out meaningly. The “yes” was raised significantly.
“Yes,” repeated the mother. “I wonder—”
She evidently did not want to admit that the cousin was usurping her
daughter’s room.
“I’ve got to rush, Momsey,” exclaimed Hazel, entering the door just as
Gloria sprang into the closet.
“Mother!” cried Hazel. “Is Gloria using—my—room?”
“Shs-s-hh!”
“Is she?”
“Your father—”
“I don’t care anything about father. Tell me, is she?”
“Hazel, please keep your voice down,” begged the distracted mother. “You
don’t know what I’ve been through—”
“I do, or I can imagine, for I know Gloria.
“I suppose she was furious—”
“No, she has been actually very sensible—”
“Then look out. She has a motive if she is sensible. But, mother, I have
got to run along, or we will be put on probation if we over stay, and
there is no telling what may delay us. We had to stop to get air in the
car coming out.”
Gloria was now so far back in the closet that she could hardly breathe,
but the door had sprung open a crack so she heard distinctly what the
mother and daughter were saying.
“Where’s my tweed coat? I’ve got to take that. It’s quite cold
evenings—”
She was coming to the closet! Gloria dared not stir! What if she should
ever discover her with all that make-up on her face and hiding in the
clothes press!
“Where is my tweed coat?” again demanded the flurried Hazel.
“I’ll look,” volunteered the equally flurried mother, and she came to
the closet—pushed the things back—there were only a few hooks between
Gloria and discovery. Then some of the things fell down.
“Oh!” shrieked Hazel. “I thought I heard a mouse or something!”
“Maybe Tobias—”
“Turn on the light, mother. I will surely never get out again this week
if I am late getting back. You see Jen had her car come down, her
father’s driving or we couldn’t have come. Where on earth is that coat?”
Right in Gloria’s eye a heavy fold of cloth indicated a tweed coat. She
crouched down still further. The closet was very long, running between
two rooms, and at its end was a box covering a heating pipe. The furnace
had not been lighted for the season, but Gloria welcomed the pipe-box as
something to crouch down upon. It was better than the floor.
If only they would find the coat! Or if they would only give up looking
for it! Every second seemed an hour to the girl afraid to breathe lest
she be discovered.
“Queer,” said Hazel’s mother, replacing some of the fallen garments.
“Now, mother,” said Hazel, leaving the closet and going out into the
room to better emphasize her argument, “you know I don’t mind Gloria
being here, but she positively must not use my room. I have spent too
much time—”
“Do please be quiet, Hazel. Gloria won’t want to use it. She is
perfectly satisfied with the other. But we just had to pacify your
father.” There was a tone of helplessness in Mrs. Towers’ voice. Her
daughter sighed. They were evidently both much confused.
“But this closet is all on end—”
A gasped “Oh” almost escaped Gloria. She clapped her hand over her mouth
to stifle it.
“There’s the horn,” exclaimed Hazel. “Mother, I’ve got to go. But mail
me that coat and a couple of extra white waists—”
“Hazel, your father insists I shall tell Gloria,” interrupted the
mother.
“Now, mother!” this was in complete deprecation. “Do whatever you think
best, but don’t worry me to death—”
“But I have to be worried to death—”
“But, mother, it may seem mean of me to say it, but didn’t you make the
big mistake?”
“For you, Hazel.”
“Now, Momsey,” a resounding kiss, “just you wait until I am a great
singer, then you won’t regret a single sacrifice. See if I don’t make it
all up to you. We understand each other, don’t we, Momsey, if dad is
difficult?”
The mother’s sigh was tempered with more embracing, then the tooting of
the motor horn by Hazel’s impatient friends outside, made it so
imperative that she hurry, there was no further possibility of
prolonging the search for the tweed coat.
For some moments after the door was closed Gloria remained in the
closet. Then she realized her uncle would soon be searching for her, and
she also remembered how difficult it was apt to be to remove make-up.
She pushed the clothes aside and stole out quietly. Once more before the
mirror she surveyed her face curiously.
“That was a risky laugh,” she told her reflection, “but it was worth the
price. Only, I didn’t see Hazel, and I am sure she looked stunning. Her
voice sounded that way.”
Quickly she slipped out of the robe—got the pins and buckles out of her
hair, went to the alcove and dipped into the cold cream jar; then she
breathed easier.
“If some one calls me now I can appear to have been taking a treatment.
Any girl may daub on cold cream,” she decided calmly. In five minutes
more she was almost herself again, although the tint of her cheeks was a
trifle high, and the lines under her eyes a little crooked. Also she
looked a lot prettier than usual.
“I just wonder what it is uncle wants aunt to tell me,” she ruminated,
feeling livelier and more like herself than she had since coming out to
Sandford. “Well, I’d like to know what happened to Aunt Lottie’s money,
of course, but since I’ve stood it this long I guess I can hold out a
while longer. And even Hazel is quite human. She kissed Aunt Hattie four
times.”
Her uncle’s voice at the foot of the stairs confirmed her guess that he
would presently be searching for her.
“Coming!” she called back, fastening the last snapper of her Jersey
waist as she went.
And on her way down she composed an excuse for her aunt’s certain
questions as to where she had been while Hazel was in the room.
“Poor little Aunt Hattie!” she was thinking, “I wonder was my own mother
like her?”