Nancy Of Paradise Cottage Part 5

"Er--I say--good-evening, Miss Prescott. I got to you first, so I've a right to the first dance." It was Frank Barrows, the hero of Alma's potato adventure, who claimed Alma before her little silver foot had reached the last step. A lean young man, with sleek, blond hair, a weak chin, and the free-and-easy, all-conquering manner of a youth who has been spoiled by girls ever since he put on long trousers and learned to run his own car, he looked at Alma with that look of startled admiration which to a young girl is a sweeter flattery than any that words can frame. She looked up at Nancy with a glance of joyous, innocent triumph, and then, putting her plump little hand on her partner's arm, and instantly meeting his gallantry with the pretty, utterly unconscious coquetry of a born flirt, she moved off.

Nancy, still standing at the foot of the stairs, watched the yellow head as it pa.s.sed among the heads of the other dancers. That quick, happy glance of Alma's had said, "Forgive me for being so pretty. You are better, and finer, and more beautiful--but they haven't found it out yet."

She stood alone, terribly shy, her smooth cheeks flus.h.i.+ng scarlet, and her bright eyes searching timidly for some friendly corner where she could run and hide herself away for the rest of the evening. Without Alma beside her to be petted and protected, she looked almost pathetically just what she was--a modest young girl, who was peculiarly lovely and appealing, as she stood waiting with a beating heart to catch a friendly eye in all that terrible, gay, selfish throng of pleasure-seekers.

CHAPTER V

A RETICENT GENTLEMAN--AND MISS BANCROFT

With only the one aim of getting to harbor by hook or crook, Nancy, her cheeks burning with shyness, edged her way along the wall. She would not have felt half so much alone if she had been dropped into the middle of the Sahara desert, and, while her little feet tingled with the rhythm of the music, she surrendered herself to the unhappy conviction that she was doomed to be a wall-flower.

She did not know these people; she felt as if she could never know them. Everything in their manner, their speech and their dress suggested a foreignness to her own nature that could never be bridged, unless she herself changed and became another being. It was something that she could not define, this difference; it was simply something that grew out of a different way of thinking and feeling about life.

All these people seemed to make pleasure their business, the most important purpose of their existence, and this att.i.tude, expressed in the very way that the girls carried themselves, in the tones of their voices, in their light sc.r.a.ps of inconsequential and not very clever talk, made her feel strange beyond description.

She stood near a group of palms under the arch of the staircase, watching the faces all about her, longing one minute to be at home, curled up with a book on her shabby, comfortable window-seat, and the next, that she might be drawn into the centre of all that bubbling, companionable enjoyment. Now she caught a glimpse of Alma, who was standing near the door of the dancing-room, bantering and coquetting with a little cl.u.s.ter of youths who had gathered about her, heaven knows where from or how, like flies about a jar of new honey; it was plainly Alma's natural environment, in which she revelled like a joyous young fish in a sunny pool.

"So that pretty little creature is George Prescott's daughter?" The question, spoken in a rather deep and penetrating voice, carried clearly to Nancy's ears, and she turned. At a little distance from her, seated on a small couch, sat Mrs. Porterbridge, a lean woman with a tight-lipped, aquiline face, and painfully thin neck and arms, and the old lady who had put the question. A quite remarkable-looking old lady, Nancy thought, enormously fat, dressed in purple velvet, her huge, dimpled arms and shoulders billowing, out of it, like the whipped cream on top of some t.i.tanic confection. Two small, plump, tapering hands clasped a handsome feather fan against her almost perpendicular lap. Two generous chins completely obliterated any outward evidences of neck, so that her head seemed to have been set upon her shoulders with the nave simplicity of a dough-man's; yet for all this, one glance at her keen, intelligent face, with its sleepy, twinkling eyes and humorous, witty mouth, was enough to a.s.sure one that, whoever she might be, she was not an ordinary old lady by any means. One guessed at once that she had seen much of the world in her sixty-five or seventy years, that she had enjoyed every moment of the entertainment, and that while she probably required everyone else to respect public opinion, she felt comfortably privileged to disregard it herself whenever she pleased. She had been busily discussing everyone who attracted her attention, disdaining to lower her sonorous voice or to conceal in any way the fact that she was gossiping briskly. Young and old alike hastened up to her to pay their respects, and it was evident from their manner of eager deference that she was a rather important old person, whose keen and fearless tongue made her good opinion worth gaining.

At present she had centred her lively interest upon Alma, and Nancy could not resist the temptation of listening to her remarks, especially since the old lady was obviously perfectly willing to let anyone and everyone hear her who might have reason to listen.

"That is little Alma Prescott," Mrs. Porterbridge was replying. "She is charmingly pretty, isn't she?"

"The image of her mother. Tell me something about them. It's ridiculous, isn't it, how we can live for years within a stone's throw of our neighbors without ever knowing whether their Sunday clothes are made of silk or calico. George Prescott used to be my particular favorite, when he was a youngster. I remember when he married that empty-pated little beauty--I gave him tons of my choicest advice--was absolutely prodigal of my finest gems of wisdom; but when I saw her--well, I knew very well that there would be ups and downs--she should have married an Indian nabob--but, thought I, I might as well shout to the north wind to be placid as to tell him to give her up and find himself some sensible, excellent creature, who could mend his socks and turn his old suits for him. He would rather have lived on burnt potatoes and bacon, with that charming little spendthrift, than have enjoyed all the blessings of good housekeeping at the hands of the most estimable creature we could have found for him. I do like that spirit in a young man, however much my excellent common sense may disapprove of it.

"I saw nothing of George after his marriage. I was too fond of him to stand around offering advice, when he couldn't possibly make any use of it. I should probably have lost my temper just as Tom Prescott did--and I cannot endure to be in such a ridiculous position. I had a notion that Lallie Prescott didn't live here any more."

"I believe that the family suffers rather keen financial difficulties,"

said Mrs. Porterbridge. "The girls go out very little--are quite isolated, in fact."

"You mean that they are hard up--don't use those genteel euphemisms, my dear,--I can't understand 'em.

"I'm sorry. It was inevitable, of course, but I'm one of the few beings that sincerely regret seeing other people reaping what they've sown. I've always avoided my own deserts so successfully." Her big, jolly laugh rang out at this. "There are two girls, I remember. Both pretty?"

"Yes, indeed," replied Mrs. Porterbridge, in the unenthusiastic tone with which the mother of a rather plain daughter will praise the beauty of another woman's daughter.

"Hum. Well, that's distinctly _something_. I really couldn't work up any heartfelt interest in them if they were ugly--though, of course, I understand that beauty is only skin deep, and handsome is as handsome does, and all that--whoever invented those saws must have been unbearably ugly--I've always suspected that it was some plain, jealous old wife of King Solomon who got very philosophical in her old age.

Now, I'd really like to know what little Lallie Prescott is going to do with them."

Mrs. Porterbridge gave a dry, affected little laugh, looking at Alma, who was waltzing again with the obviously infatuated Frank Barrows.

"Well, I imagine that she is going to do all that she can to marry them off as advantageously as possible, and I dare say that both of them----"

"Now, don't say anything cattish, my dear," interrupted the old lady, quite sharply, a sudden coldness routing the twinkle in her merry eyes.

"I always know when you are going to say something that will annoy me, and nothing annoys me more than to hear an older woman say anything unkind about a young girl. I tell you this because I'm sure that you don't want to make me angry. If you are trying to tell me that Lallie Prescott is a schemer in regard to the future of her two daughters, why, I should be very much surprised to learn anything else. We are all schemers for our children--and just as in love and war, we consider everything fair so long as it works for their advantage. But----"

Nancy, her cheeks burning, heard no more. In a last desperate effort at escape, she turned and fled unseen through the nearest doorway.

At first she did not realize where she was; then she discovered that she had chanced upon a veritable haven of refuge, a large, quiet room, cosily lighted by a reading-lamp, furnished with huge, paternal-looking armchairs and divans, and lined on three of its walls from floor to ceiling with whole regiments of books. The fourth wall was monopolized by a great stone fireplace, where three or four tree-trunks smouldered softly, popping every now and then into small explosions of ruddy sparks. The smell of leather, of wood smoke, and even the delicate musty smell of the rich, yellowed paper of old books mingled with the hazy fragrance of a Turkish cigarette. Nancy was too much concerned with her own thoughts to wonder where the source of that comfortable aroma o tobacco lay--it was to her just a part of the atmosphere of books and quiet and leather chairs which she always a.s.sociated with her memories of her father. Revelling in the sensation of being alone, as she blissfully fancied herself to be, she wandered about looking at the t.i.tles of the books, now and again taking down a volume and turning the leaves. Here she chanced upon a delightful old edition of "Pickwick Papers," bound in worn leather, there a copy of the "Vicar of Wakefield," with yellowed pages, and quaint, old-fas.h.i.+oned print, and the sight of these old friends, a.s.sociated as they were with the happiest and most tranquil hours of her life, soothed to a certain extent her feelings which had been cruelly wounded by the conversation she had overheard.

But she was still sore and angry. Still holding the "Vicar of Wakefield" in her hand, she stood, staring absently into the fire.

"So that's what people will be saying about us--that we are pus.h.i.+ng and scheming, and--and trying to make friends just to use them for our advantage," she thought bitterly, recalling Mrs. Porterbridge's unfriendly little insinuation.

Sensitive and proud as she was, that unfinished remark, made in the cold, hard tone of a woman who, judging the whole world by herself, credited everyone alike with self-interested and worldly motives, had inflicted a wound that would be long in healing. It was not indeed on her own account that she resented it so bitterly, but because of her mother and Alma, whose actions, she knew, could be so misinterpreted and ascribed to quite false motives. She knew, too, less by experience than by instinct, that beneath all the pleasures and gaiety which Alma craved so eagerly, would flow that bitter undercurrent of cynical comment made by people who had so long been self-seeking that they could not believe in the artlessness of a young girl's simple thirst for enjoyment.

Busy with these thoughts, a little strange and mature perhaps for her age, she was quite unconscious of two interesting facts. First, that from an armchair just beyond the radius of the lamplight, the source of the cigarette smoke was regarding her with mingled astonishment and approval, and, second, that she herself was making a very charming picture as she stood in the deep, mellow glow of the firelight.

A small man, with a kind, whimsical, clever face, was looking at her with a pair of singularly bright brown eyes--eyes which had the direct, unwavering, gentle gaze of a person who has the gift of reading the meaning of faces and expressions to which others are blind. Indeed, so clearly had he guessed the trend of the thoughts which underlay the seriousness of Nancy's sensitive face, that he felt almost like an eavesdropper. Suddenly she jerked her head and saw him. He stood up.

"I--I beg your pardon," he apologized, still with the sensation of having heard something that had not been meant for his ears. "You didn't know I was here, and I was rather at a loss as to how I should break it to you."

Nancy had flushed to the edge of her hair.

"That--that's all right," she stammered. "I--I mean, I should apologize to you. You were reading." She began to move away toward the door again, but he stopped her hastily.

"You mustn't go, and you mustn't for a moment think you've disturbed me. I haven't any business to be in here anyway, because I think I was invited to entertain and be entertained like any respectable guest. I don't know what they do to unmannerly, unsociable creatures who sneak off for a book and a smoke from the scenes of revelry, but I'm guilty, and deserve to die the death, or whatever it is."

Nancy laughed. When he talked he had a droll way of wrinkling up his forehead, and then suddenly breaking into a beaming, mischievous grin, like a schoolboy.

"I'm guilty, too."

"Yes,--and really ever so much more so than I am; because you're deliberately robbing at least ninety-nine per cent. of the guests of a part of their evening's pleasure, whereas, my absence is of so little importance one way or the other that, although I've been in here the better part of an hour already, there hasn't been even a whimper of protest. It's been decidedly injurious to my _amour-propre_. I had hoped, when you came in, that you had been sent by the unanimous vote of all present to request my immediate return to the regions of festivity. I was prepared to be coy--but not adamantine. Imagine my chagrin and dismay when it gradually dawned on me not only that you hadn't come for any such flattering purpose, but even that you hadn't the smallest notion I was here. As far as you were concerned I was of less significance than a c.o.c.kroach."

"But that's not bad--a c.o.c.kroach would be of awful significance to me,"

said Nancy, with a laugh.

"We have caught each other red-handed in an overwhelming breach of manners," continued he, severely. "But then, look at it this way--here we are, each having a good time in our own way. Now it seems to me that a hostess could ask no more of a guest than that he find his own entertainment--if he seeks it by ambling out into the garden to weed up wild onions, why, well and good----"

"You are only trying to dazzle me with a false argument in self-defense," said Nancy.

"You should be grateful to me for furnis.h.i.+ng such a good one, since you've need of one yourself, ma'am. But if you don't like it, why then I shall change my mind. As a matter of fact, the idea of dancing has suddenly appealed to me very strongly--since Providence has at last provided me with a--well, with a more delightful partner than I should have dared to hope for. And they are playing a very charming waltz.

Will you dance with me?"

He made a graceful little old-fas.h.i.+oned bow, and offered her his arm.

Then he smiled.

"I--I haven't introduced myself yet. Do you mind? I should have done it in the beginning, but I couldn't think of any graceful way of hinting at my name, and it's so horribly clumsy just to say pointblank, 'My name's George Arnold. What's yours?'"

"But there isn't any other way," answered Nancy, a little shyly, but laughing, too, "unless we both go to Mrs. Porterbridge and ask her to introduce us. My name is Nancy--Anne Prescott."

"There now--it's perfectly simple, isn't it? I never could understand why there should be any formal to-do about telling two people each other's names. Do you know, the very minute you came in--perhaps it was from the way you looked at those dear old books--I felt as if--well, as if we ought to be friends. You are fond of them, aren't you--of books--really fond of them?"

"I love those old, shabby ones. They--they looked so very friendly."

He stole a keen glance at her face, and smiled gently at what it told him. Then, as she clung to his arm, he guided her dexterously through the crowd to the dancing floor.