Books: The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne
K >>
Kathleen Norris >> The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
10
"Well, Anne--well, Anne," her brother said huskily, "we'll make it
up now. Where are you going to put them?" he presently added, with
an inspiration.
Miss Pratt straightened up, blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and rang
for the maid.
"Betty and Hope in the big front room--" she began happily.
Another brief conversation, this time between George Carew and his
wife, was indicative of a certain change of view-point that was
affecting the women of Santa Paloma in these days. Mr. Carew, coming
home one evening, found a very demure and charming figure seated on
the porch. Mrs. Carew's gown was simplicity itself: a thin, dotted,
dark blue silk, with a deep childish lace collar and cuffs.
"You look terribly sweet, Jen," said Mr. Carew; "you look out of
sight." And when he came downstairs again, and they were at dinner,
he returned to the subject with, "Jen, I haven't seen you look so
sweet for a long time. What is that, a new dress? Is that for the
reception on the Fourth? Jen, didn't you have a dress like that when
we were first married?"
"Sorrel made this, and it only cost sixty dollars," said Mrs. Carew.
"Well, get her to make you another," her husband said approvingly.
At which Mrs. Carew laughed a little shakily, and came around the
table, and put her arms about him and said:
"Oh, George, you dear old BAT! Miss Pomeroy made this, upstairs
here, in three days, and the silk cost nine dollars. I DID have a
dress like this in my trousseau--my first silk--and I thought it was
wonderful; and I think you're a darling to remember it; and I AM
going to wear this on the Fourth. It's nice enough, isn't it?"
"Nice enough! You'll be the prettiest woman there," stated Mr. Carew
positively.
CHAPTER XIII
The earliest daylight of July Fourth found Santa Paloma already
astir. Dew was heavy on the ropes of flowers and greens, and the
flags and bunting that made brilliant all the line of the day's
march; and long scarfs of fog lingered on the hills, but for all
that, and despite the delicious fragrant chill of the morning air,
nobody doubted that the day would be hot and cloudless, and the
evening perfect for fireworks. Lawn-sprinklers began to whir busily
in the sweet shaded gardens long before the sunlight reached them;
windows and doors were flung open to the air; women, sweeping
garden-paths and sidewalks with gay energy, called greetings up and
down the street to one another. Chairs were dragged out-of-doors;
limp flags began to stir in the sunny air; other flags squeakily
mounted their poles. At every window bunting showed; the schoolhouse
was half-hidden in red, white, and blue; the women's clubhouse was
festooned with evergreens and Japanese lanterns; and the Mail
office, the grand stand opposite, the shops, and the bank, all
fluttered with gay colors. Children shouted and scampered
everywhere; gathered in fascinated groups about the ice-cream and
candy and popcorn booths that sprang up at every corner; met
arriving cousins and aunts at the train; ran on last-minute errands.
Occasionally a whole package of exploding firecrackers smote the
warm still air.
By half-past ten every window on the line of march, every dooryard
and porch, had its group of watchers. Wagons and motor-cars, from
the surrounding villages and ranches, blocked the side streets. It
was very warm, and fans and lemonade had a lively sale.
From the two available windows of the Mail office, three persons, as
eager as the most eager child, watched the gathering crowds, and
waited for the Flower Parade. They were Mrs. Apostleman, stately in
black lace, and regally fanning, Sidney Burgoyne, looking her very
prettiest in crisp white, with a scarlet scarf over her arm, and
Barry Valentine, who looked unusually festive himself in white
flannels. All three were in wild spirits.
"Hark, here they come!" said Sidney at last, drawing her head in
from a long inspection of the street. She had been waving and
calling greetings in every direction for a pleasant half-hour. Now
eleven had boomed from the town-hall clock, and a general
restlessness and wiltedness began to affect the waiting crowds.
Barry immediately dangled almost his entire length across the window
sill, and screwed his person about for a look.
"H'yar dey come, li'l miss, sho's yo' bawn!" he announced joyfully.
"There's the band!"
Here they came, sure enough, under the flags and garlands, through
the noonday heat. Only vague brassy notes and the general craning of
necks indicated their approach now; but in another five minutes the
uniformed band was actually in view, and the National Guard after
it, tremendously popular, and the Native Sons, with another band,
and the veterans, thin, silver-headed old men in half a dozen
carriages, and more open carriages. One held the Governor and his
wife, the former bowing and smiling right and left, and saluted by
the rising school children, when he seated himself in the judges'
stand, with the shrill, thrilling notes of the national anthem.
And then another band, and--at last!--the slow-moving, flower-
covered carriages and motors, a long, wonderful, brilliant line of
them. White-clad children in rose-smothered pony-carts, pretty girls
in a setting of scarlet carnations, more pretty girls half-hidden in
bobbing and nodding daisies--every one more charming than the last.
There were white horses as dazzling as soap and powder could make
them; horses whose black flanks glistened as dark as coal, and there
was a tandem of cream-colored horses that tossed rosettes of pink
Shirley poppies in their ears. The Whites' motor-car, covered with
pink carnations, and filled with good-looking lads flying the colors
of the Women's Club and the nation's flag, won a special round of
applause. Mrs. Burgoyne and Barry loyally clapped for the Pratt
motor-car, from which Joanna Burgoyne and Lizzie Pratt's children
were beaming upon the world.
"But what are they halting for, and what are they clapping?" Sidney
presently demanded, when a break in the line and a sudden outburst
of cheering and applause interrupted the parade. Barry again hung at
a dangerous angle from the window. Presently he sat back, his face
one broad smile.
"It's us," he remarked simply. "Wait until you see us; we're the
cream of the whole show!"
Too excited to speak, Sidney knelt breathless at the sill, her eyes
fixed upon the spot where the cause of the excitement must appear.
She was perhaps the only one of all the watchers who did not
applaud, as the eight powerful oxen came slowly down the sunshiny
street, guided by the tall, lean driver who walked beside them, and
dragging the great wagon and its freight of rapturous children.
Only an old hay-wagon, after all; only a team of shabby oxen, such
as a thousand lumber-camps in California might supply; only a score
or more of the ill-nourished, untrained children of the very poor;
but what an enchantment of love and hope and summer-time had been
flung over them all! The body of the wagon was entirely hidden by
exquisite hydrangeas; the wheels were moving disks of the pale pink
and blue blossoms; the oxen, their horns gilded, their polished
hoofs twinkling as they moved, wore yokes that seemed solidly made
of the flowers, and great ropes of blossoms hid the swinging chains.
Over each animal a brilliant cover had been flung; and at the head
of each a young Indian boy, magnificent in wampum and fringed
leather, feathers and beads, walked sedately. The children were
grouped, pyramid-fashion, on the wagon, in a nest of hydrangea
blooms, the pink, and cream, and blue of their gowns blending with
the flowers all about them, the sunlight shining full in their happy
eyes. Over their shoulders were garlands of poppies, roses, sweet-
peas, daisies, carnations, lilies, or other blossoms; their hands
were full of flowers. But it was the radiance of their faces that
shone brightest, after all. It was the little consumptive's ecstatic
smile, as she sat resting against an invisible support; it was the
joy in Mary Scott's thin eager face, framed now in her loosened dark
hair, and with the shadow, like her crutch, laid aside for a while,
that somehow brought tears to the eyes that watched. Santa Paloma
cheered and applauded these forgotten children of hers; and the
children laughed and waved their hands in return.
Youth and happiness and summer-time incarnate, the vision went on
its way, down the bright street; and other carriages followed it,
and were praised as those that had gone before had been. But no
entry in any flower parade that Santa Paloma had ever known, was as
much discussed as this one. Indeed, it began a new era; but that was
later on. When Mrs. Burgoyne's plain white frock appeared among the
elaborate gowns worn at the club luncheon that afternoon, she was
quite overwhelmed by congratulations. She went away very early, to
superintend the children's luncheon at the Hall, and then Mrs. White
had a chance to tell the distinguished guests who she was, and that
she could well afford to play Lady Bountiful to the Santa Paloma
children.
"One wouldn't imagine it, she seems absolutely simple and
unspoiled," said Mrs. Governor.
"She is!" said Mrs. Lloyd unexpectedly.
"I told her how scared most of us had been at the mere idea of her
coming here, Parker," Mrs. Lloyd told her husband later, "and how
friendly she is, and that she always wears little wash dresses, and
that the other girls are beginning to wear checked aprons and
things, because her girls do! Of course, I said it sort of
laughingly, you know, but I don't think Clara White liked it ONE
BIT, and I don't care! Clara is rather mad at me, anyway," she went
on, musingly, "because yesterday she telephoned that she was going
to send that Armenian peddler over here, with some Madeira lunch
cloths. They WERE beauties, and only twenty-three dollars; you'd pay
fifty for them at Raphael Weil's--they're smuggled, I suppose! But I
simply said, 'Clara, I can't afford it!' and let it go at that. She
laughed--quite cattily, Parker!--and said, 'Oh, that's rather
funny!' But I don't care whether Clara White thinks I'm copying Mrs.
Burgoyne or not! I might as well copy her as somebody else!"
Mrs. Burgoyne and Barry Valentine went down-town on the evening of
the great day, to see the fireworks and the crowds, and to hear the
announcements of prize-winners. Santa Paloma was in holiday mood,
and the two entered into the spirit of the hour like irresponsible
children. It was a warm, wonderful summer night; the sky was close
and thickly spangled with stars. Main Street bobbed with Japanese
lanterns, rang with happy voices and laughter. The jostling, pushing
currents of men in summer suits, and joyous girls in thin gowns,
were all good-natured. Sidney found friends on all sides, and
laughed and called her greetings as gaily as anyone.
Barry had a rare opportunity to watch her unobserved, as she went
her happy way; the earnest happy brightness in her eyes, when some
shabby little woman from Old Paloma laid a timid hand on her arm,
her adoring interest in the fat babies that slumbered heavily on
paternal shoulders, her ready use of names, "Isn't this fun,
Agnes?"--"You haven't lost Harry, have you, Mrs. O'Brien?"--"Don't
you and your friend want to come and have some ice-cream with us,
Josie?"
"But we mustn't waste too much time here, Barry," she would say now
and then; for at eight o'clock a "grand concert program and
distribution of prizes" was scheduled to take place at the town
hall, and Sidney was anxious not to miss an instant of it. "Don't
worry, I'll get you there!" Barry would answer reassuringly, amused
at her eagerness.
And true to his word, he stopped her at the wide doorway of the
concert hall, fully five minutes before the hour, and they found
themselves joining the slow stream of men and women and children
that was pouring up the wide, dingy stairway. Everyone was trying,
in all good humor, to press ahead of everyone else, inspired with
the sudden agonizing conviction that in the next two minutes every
desirable seat would certainly be gone. Even Sidney, familiar as she
was with every grand opera house in the world, felt the infection,
and asked rather nervously if any of the seats were reserved.
"Don't worry; we'll get seats," said the imperturbable Barry, and
several children in their neighborhood laughed out in sudden
exquisite relief.
Seats indeed there were, although the front rows were filling fast,
and all the aisle-chairs were taken by squirming, restless small
children. Mrs. Burgoyne sat down, and studied the hall with
delighted eyes. It was ordinarily only a shabby, enormous, high-
ceiled room, filled with rows of chairs, and with an elevated stage
at the far end. But, like all Santa Paloma, it was in holiday trim
to-night. All the windows--wide open to the summer darkness--were
framed in bunting and drooping flowers, and on the stage were potted
palms and crossed flags. Great masses of bamboo and California ferns
were tied with red, white and blue streamers between the windows,
and, beside these decorations, which were new for the occasion, were
purple and yellow banners, left from the night of the Native Sons'
Grand Ball and Reception, a month ago, and, arched above the stage
the single word "Welcome" in letters two feet high, which dated back
to the Ladies of Saint Rose's Parish Annual Fair and Entertainment,
in May. If the combined effect of these was not wholly artistic, at
least it was very gay, and the murmur of voices and laughter all
over the hall was gay, too, and gay almost to intoxication it was to
hear the musicians tentatively and subduedly trying their
instruments up by the piano, with their sleek heads close together.
Presently every chair in the house had its occupant, and the younger
element began a spasmodic sort of clapping, as a delicate hint to
the agitated managers, who were behind the scenes, running blindly
about with worn scraps of scribbled paper in their hands,
desperately attempting to call the roll of their performers. When
Joe, the janitor, came out onto the stage, he was royally applauded,
although he did no more than move a tin stand on which there were
numbered cards, from one side of the stage to the other, and change
the number in view from "18" to "1."
Fathers and mothers, perspiring, clean and good-natured, smiled upon
youthful impatience and impertinence to-night, as they sat fanning
and discussing the newcomers, or leaned forward or backward for
hilarious scraps of conversation with their neighbors. Lovers, as
always oblivious of time, sat entirely indifferent to the rise or
fall of the curtain, the girls with demurely dropped lashes, the men
deep in low monotones, their faces close to the lovely faces so
near, their arms flung, in all absent-mindedness, across the backs
of the ladies' chairs. And any motherly heart might have been
stirred with an aching sort of tenderness, as Sidney Burgoyne's was,
at the sight of so much awkward, budding manliness, so many shining
pompadours, and carefully polished shoes and outrageous cravats--so
many silky, filleted little heads, and innocent young bosoms half-
hidden by all sorts of dainty little conspiracies of lace and lawn.
Youth, enchanting, self-absorbed, important, had coolly taken
possession of the hall, as it does of everything, for its own happy
plans, and something of the gossamer beauty of it seemed to be
clouding older and wiser eyes to-night. Sidney found her eyes
resting upon Barry's big, shapely hand, as he leaned forward, deep
in conversation with Dr. Brown, in the chair ahead, and she was
conscious that she wanted to sit back and shut her eyes, and draw a
deep breath of sheer irrational happiness because this WAS Barry
next to her, and that he liked to be there.
Presently the hall thrilled to see two modest-looking and obviously
embarrassed men come out to seat themselves in the half-circle of
chairs that lined the stage, and a moment later applause broke out
for the Mayor and his wife, and the members of the Flower Parade
Committee of Arrangements, and for the nondescript persons who
invariably fill in such a group, and for the kindly, smiling
Governor, and the ladies of his party, and for the Willard Whites,
who, with the easiest manners in the world, were in actual
conversation with the great people as they came upon the stage.
At the sight of them, Mrs. Carew, still vigorously clapping, leaned
over to say to Mrs. Burgoyne:
"Look at Clara White! And we were wondering why they didn't come in!
Wouldn't she make you TIRED!"
"You might kiss her hand, when you go up to get your prize, Mrs.
Burgoyne," suggested Barry, and a general giggle went the rounds.
"If I get a prize," said Sidney, in alarm, "you've got to go up, I
couldn't!"
"We'll see--" Barry began, his voice drowned by the opening crash of
the band.
There followed what the three papers of Santa Paloma were unanimous
the next day in describing as the most brilliant and enjoyable
concert ever given in Santa Paloma. It was received with immense
enthusiasm, entirely unaffected by the fact that everyone present
had heard Miss Emelie Jeanne Foster sing "Twickenham Ferry" before,
with "Dawn" as an encore, and was familiar also with the selections
of the Stringed Instrument Club, and had listened to young Doctor
Perry's impassioned tenor many times. As for George O'Connor, with
his irresistible laughing song, and the song about the train that
went to Morro to-day, he was more popular every time he appeared,
and was greeted now by mad applause, and shouts of "There's George!"
and "Hello, George!"
And the Home Boys' Quartette from Emville was quite new, and various
solo singers and a "lady elocutionist" from San Francisco were heard
for the first time. The latter, who was on the program merely for a
"Recitation--Selected," was so successful with "Pauline Pavlovna,"
and "Seein' Things at Night" that it was nearly ten o'clock before
the Governor was introduced.
However, he was at last duly presented to the applauding hundreds,
and came forward to the footlights to address them, and made
everyone laugh and feel friendly by saying immediately that he knew
they hadn't come out that evening to hear an old man make a long
speech.
He said he didn't believe in speechmaking much, he believed in DOING
things; there were always a lot of people to stand around and make
speeches, like himself--and there was more laughter.
He said that he knew the business of the evening was the giving out
of these prizes here--he didn't know what was in these boxes--he
indicated the daintily wrapped and tied packages that stood on the
little table in the middle of the stage--but he thought every lady
in the hall would know before she went home, and perhaps some one of
them would tell him--and there was more laughter. He said he hoped
that there was something mighty nice in the largest box, because he
understood that it was to go to a fairy-godmother; he didn't know
whether the good people in the hall believed in fairies or not, but
he knew that some of the children in Old Paloma did, and he had seen
and heard enough that day to make him believe in 'em too! He'd heard
of a fairy years ago who made a coach-and-four out of a pumpkin, but
he didn't think that was any harder than to make a coach-and-six out
of a hay-wagon, and put twenty Cinderellas into it instead of one.
He said it gave him great pride and pleasure to announce that the
first prize for to-day's beautiful contest had been unanimously
awarded to--
Sidney Burgoyne, watching him with fascinated eyes, her breath
coming fast and unevenly, her color brightening and fading, heard
only so much, and then, with a desperate impulse to get away, half
rose to her feet.
But she was too late. Long before the Governor reached her name, a
sudden outburst of laughter and clapping shook the hall, there was a
friendly stir and murmur about her; a hundred voices came to her
ears, "It's Mrs. Burgoyne, of course!--She's got it! She's got the
first prize!--Go on up, Mrs. Burgoyne! You've got it!--Isn't that
GREAT,--she's got it! Go up and get it!"
"You've got first prize, I guess. You'll have to go up for it,"
Barry urged her.
"He didn't say so!" Sidney protested nervously. But she let herself
be half-pushed into the aisle, and somehow reached the three little
steps that led up to the platform, and found herself facing His
Excellency, in an uproar of applause.
The Governor said a few smiling words as he put a large box into her
hands; Sidney knew this because she saw his lips move, but the house
had gone quite mad by this time, and not a word was audible.
Everyone in the hall knew that a tall loving-cup was in the box, for
it had been on exhibition in the window of Postag's jewelry store
for three weeks. It was of silver, and lined with gold, both metals
shining with an unearthly and flawless radiance; and there was
"Awarded--as a First Prize--in the Twelfth Floral Parade--of Santa
Paloma, California" cut beautifully into one side, and a scroll all
ready, on the other side, to be engraved with the lucky winner's
name.
She had been joking for two or three weeks about the possibility of
this very occurrence, had been half-expecting it all day, but now
suddenly all the joke seemed gone out of it, and she was only
curiously stirred and shaken. She looked confusedly down at the sea
of faces below her, smiles were everywhere, the eyes that were upon
her were full of all affection and pride--She had done so little
after all, she said to herself, with sudden humility, almost with
shame. And it was so poignantly sweet to realize that they loved
her, that she was one of themselves, they were glad she had won, she
who had been a stranger to all of them only a few months ago!
Her eyes full of sudden tears, her lip shaking, she could only bow
and bow again, and then, just as her smile threatened to become
entirely eclipsed, she managed a husky "Thank you all so much!" and
descended the steps rapidly, to slip into her chair between Barry
and George Carew.
"You know, you oughtn't to make a long tedious speech like that on
an occasion like this, Sid," Barry said, when she had somewhat
recovered her equilibrium, and the silver loving cup was unwrapped,
and was being passed admiringly from hand to hand.
"Don't!" she said warningly, "or you'll have me weeping on your
shoulder!"
Instead of which she was her gayest self, and accepted endless
congratulations with joyous composure, as the audience streamed out
into the reviving festivity of Main Street. The tide was turning in
one direction now, for there were to be "fireworks and a stupendous
band concert" immediately following the concert, in a vacant lot not
far away.
And presently they all found themselves seated on the fragrant
grass, under the stars. George Carew, at Sidney's feet, solemnly
wrapped sections of molasses popcorn in oiled paper, and passed them
to the ladies. Barry's coat made a comfortable seat for Mrs.
Burgoyne and little Mrs. Brown; Barry himself was just behind, and
Mrs. Carew and her big son beside them. All about, in the darkness,
were other groups: mothers and fathers and alert, chattering
children. Alice Carter, the big mill-girl, radiant now, and with a
hoarse, inarticulate, adoring young plumber in tow, went by them,
and stooped to whisper something to Mrs. Burgoyne. "I wish you WOULD
come, Alice!" the lady answered eagerly, as they went on.
Then the rockets began to hiss up toward the stars, each falling
shower of light greeted with a long rapturous "Ah-h-h!" Catherine-
wheels sputtered nearer the ground; red lights made eerie great
spots of illumination here and there, against which dark little
figures moved.
"I don't know that I ever had a happier day in my life!" said Sidney
Burgoyne.
CHAPTER XIV
More happy days followed; for Santa Paloma, after the Fourth of
July, felt only friendliness for the new owner of the Hall, and Mrs.
Burgoyne's informal teas on the river bank began to prove a powerful
attraction, even rivaling the club in feminine favor. Sometimes the
hostess enlisted all their sympathies for a newly arrived Old Paloma
baby, and they tore lengths of flannel, and busily stitched at tiny
garments, under the shade of the willow and pepper trees. Sometimes
she had in her care one or more older babies whose busy mother was
taking a day's rest, or whose father was perhaps ill, needing all
the wife's care. Always there was something to read and discuss; an
editorial in some eastern magazine that made them all indignant or
enthusiastic, or a short story worth reading aloud. And almost
always the children were within call, digging great holes in the
pebbly shallows of the river, only to fill them up again, toiling
over bridges and dams, climbing out to the perilous length of the
branches that hung above the water. Little Mary Scott, released from
the fear of an "op'ration," and facing all unconsciously a far
longer journey than the dreaded one to a San Francisco hospital, had
her own cushioned chair near the bank, where she could hear and see,
and laugh at everything that went on, and revel in consolation and
bandages when the inevitable accidents made them necessary. Mary had
no cares now, no responsibility more serious than to be sure her
feet didn't get cold, and to tell Mrs. Burgoyne the minute her head
ached; there was to be nothing but rest and comfort and laughter for
her in life now. "I don't know why we should pity her," little Mrs.
Brown said thoughtfully, one day, as they watched her with the other
children; "we can't ever hope to feel that any of our children are
as safe as she is."
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
10