“That! Now, that would go with her eyes,” said Violet, interested. “Don’t you like that, Fraley dear?”
Fraley responded instantly to the “dear” and turned her smile toward the matter in hand.
“It’s a pretty color,” she said, “but there isn’t any top to it. It looks as if those roses were going to break and let it all down.”
The models looked at one another and grinned contemptuously. The Madam said, “Oh, my dear!” and laughed affectedly; then turning to Violet Wentworth, she said, “She’s witty, isn’t she? A clever remark!”
Fraley could see that her Violet was vexed with her, and she felt mortified, though she did not know exactly what she had done.
“Do you wear a coat over it?” she asked in a low voice, but Violet did not answer.
“I think,” she said crossly, “that it’s getting late, and we will not bother with evening dresses this morning. We’ll just let her try on the green dress and possibly that little brown one.”
Then Madam rose suavely to the occasion. A customer like this was not to be lost if anything could keep her.
“I think,” said she, “if you will just have patience for one more, I would like to try something. There is a dress it has just occurred to me, and pardon me, but perhaps the young lady is right. The ingénue. That is the type. I have a lovely thing here in white velvet I would just like you to see ”
There was not a model in that establishment that had the makeup for wearing that white velvet, but Madame chose her most demure maiden and told her to wash off the rouge and hurry. By all means, hurry.
In the end, Violet bought the white velvet, of course.
Fraley, robed in it, looked like a saint from some old castle retreat. Its fabric fell from the shoulders and came around to tie in front in long sashlike ends, clasped with a knot of yellow gold.
“There is jewelry to go with this.” And Madam slung a rope of gold around the girl’s neck, clasped bracelets on her arms, and brought out earrings.
Fraley shrank back when she saw what Madam was intending to do to her and put her hands to her ears.
“Please, no,” she said and looked pleadingly toward her lady.
“She is right,” said Violet. “They do not belong to the type. A saint wouldn’t wear long dangling things in her ears. And you may keep the chain and armlets, too. I think pearls would be better. They are too noisy. She needs something quieter. The clasp is good perhaps. I’ll take the dress.”
Fraley looked at herself in the mirrors dubiously. She was not sure of herself. But it was better than some. The fabric covered her arms partially, at least, and the neck was modest in its cut, so she said nothing.
A blue taffeta was next forthcoming, with tiny sweetheart rosebuds on long wisps of silver cord hanging from a rosette of rosebuds at the little round waist; a full long skirt of bound scallops drawn into the round waist gave it a childish charm. Fraley could see that her lady liked it, so when asked if she liked it, she said, “All but the arms. I’d like some sleeves.”
The Madam laughed.
“It’s an evening dress, you know, Fraley,” said Violet. “Everybody wears them that way. You mustn’t be silly!”
“Wait!” said Madam seeing another sale in the offing. “I’ve an idea. Clotilde, go bring that lace collar, the very thing. It’s on that new dress that just came in.”
Clotilde brought the lace, fine as a cobweb, and Madam flung it over Fraley’s head and adjusted it.
“The very thing!” she cried. “She’s a clever girl. She knows what she needs to bring out her best style.”
The lace hung in soft cobwebby folds from the round neck, deep as the waistline in the back, a little shorter in front, but covering the sweet round arms to the elbow. Violet was vexed with her charge, but she couldn’t deny that the little mountain girl, dressed thus, looked very sweet and modest and that the lace brought out the charm by which she had been attracted at the first.
So they bought the blue taffeta.
“But I can’t work in any of those,” said Fraley when at last they left the place.
“No, of course not, you silly! Did you think we were buying working clothes? We’ll get some plain tailored things and some sports clothes for that. We’re going to lunch now, but after lunch we’ll go to some of the big department stores and look around. There are several more of these little exclusive shops, too, where you can pick up really original clothes quite reasonably if you know how to look for them. I want to look around and send some more things home for you to try on. There’s nothing like trying a garment in the environment in which it is to be worn to find out its defects and its good points. Of course if I find something better than these I can return them. But I’m sure the white velvet is good, and the blue taffeta is darling! We must keep that in any event.”
Fraley got back into the car feeling far more worn than from a day of her pilgrimage. Such a lot of work just to get something to put on! There seemed to be a great many pretty things in the shop windows they passed. Why wouldn’t any of them do? But she said nothing more. She saw that Violet was happy in this thing that she was doing.
After a light but costly lunch of salads and ices, they went on their way again, hunting more clothes.
“I don’t see when I can possibly use all these,” said Fraley wearily when at last they were in the car on their way back home. “I can’t ever wear out so many.”
“You don’t wear them out, child,” said Violet complacently. “You give them away when you are tired of them or sell them. Many people sell them, but it’s a lot of bother, and you have to give a maid things, anyway, or she gets dissatisfied.”
Safe in her quiet room that night, with Violet entertaining callers downstairs, Fraley pondered on the strange ways of this new world into which she had come.
Chapter 18
The days that followed were full of shopping, and while she gradually grew more intelligent in the matter of choosing garments suitable for the occasions in which she was supposed to wear them and acquired a certain simplicity in taste that was surprising, considering the contrast in her present circumstances from those that had surrounded her in her childhood, still Fraley was more or less bored with it all. She wanted to be doing so many other things in this wonderful city.
There was the river with its endless procession of boats going back and forth. She wanted to ride on all those boats. She wanted to climb the palisades and find out how far she could see from the top. She wanted to tramp the length of the river and then cross over and tramp back. Sometimes she wanted to get out and away from all the strange, cramping, hindering clutter of sights and sounds into her own native wilderness and beauty.
Then there were the great buildings that she gradually learned were of historic interest. She knew very little of world history or even of the history of her own country, and when she once discovered books of history, she read with eager appetite. The local landmarks and great buildings that commemorated some discovery or victory or happening took on new interest and seemed to stand out from their neighbors on the street almost as if they had been painted a different noble color.
But gradually the two large closets connected with her lovely room began to be filled with charming clothes—for morning and afternoon and evening, for hot, for cold, and for medium weather—and she began to hope that the days of toil in the shops were almost over.
To say she had not enjoyed it would be wrong, because she loved beauty. But to get it entirely out of its relation to other things in life wearied her. After the first few days, when she entered a shop, her quick eyes would rove around and search out one or two distinguished garments or articles from all the other commonplace ones, and Violet soon learned that she could trust her selection almost every time. Simplicity of line and color were her keynote, and she went unerringly to the few things in each shop that bore those distinctions.
So the first month passed—the month of April—and Fraley felt that she had worked hard
for her first month’s salary, even though she had done little else for her lady but select the clothes she felt were so necessary for the job. Not until she was earning some real money did she intend to write the letter she had promised to her friend the raven of the wilderness as he had called himself. She wanted to have something real to tell him about how she was getting on. So far she had done nothing but get ready to live. As soon as the shopping tours were over, she meant to begin to look around and get acquainted with New York.
But no! When the shopping was completed, Violet began to talk of going away for the summer. Mountains or seashore or a water trip. She couldn’t decide which to take.
“Why, you have just gotten home,” said Fraley in dismay. “It is so lovely here. We can take our books and go out there in the park and sit on a bench and read when the hot weather comes.”
Violet smiled at her simplicity.
“Nobody stays in the city in the summer, unless they are absolutely tied,” she told her.
“But why?”
“It is very hot here! All the best houses are closed, and people go away to get rested from the winter and enjoy themselves.”
It was of no use to talk. Going was the order of the day, so Fraley submitted, marveling over the change in her circumstances since she had started from the old cabin through her bedroom window, with only her father’s coat and handkerchief for outfit and the old gray bag containing the Bible for baggage.
Bags and suitcases and hatboxes! There seemed no end to the number that had to be packed. All those pretty dresses shut away in wardrobe trunks! She had no faith that she would ever have use for more than one or two.
And so began a round of merriment in strange hotels, utterly foreign to the child whose life had hitherto been so quiet and isolated.
There were many people whom Violet Wentworth knew at these hotels where they stopped for a week, sometimes two or three weeks, before moving on elsewhere. The days passed in a round of sea bathing, automobile riding, teas, bazaars, and the like. Fraley learned to play tennis and golf, and being the little athlete that she was, it did not take her long to become fairly proficient in both. Her arms were strong and sinewy, her eye was true, her brain was keen, and she was as lithe as a young sapling. Presently she began to be in demand to play these games because she could play well, and she really enjoyed it hugely.
Violet insisted on teaching her to dance, but she balked at the first dance she attended.
“It would be lovely if I could do it alone,” she said, “but I don’t like strange men, or any men, getting so familiar. My mother taught me…”
“There!” said Violet. “It’s time you learned that your mother was so far out of the world for so long that she was no guide for what you should do now. You have a right to choose your own life.”
Fraley was silent a moment, then she said, “Then I do choose. And I choose not to dance. I do not want any man to put his arm around me the way they do. I watched you dancing last night, and I didn’t like the way your partner touched you and looked at you. You are too dear and lovely. You—! He—! He reminded me of a bad man I knew out on the mountains.”
“Stop!” said Violet, flushing angrily. “You are getting impudent. You should dance, of course. But I don’t want to hurry you into things you don’t understand. You must get over labeling everything either good or bad. That’s ridiculous! You just watch this summer, and by fall you’ll feel differently about it. Come, let’s go and dress for dinner.”
So the days went by, and the evenings. Fraley, in blue taffeta with sweetheart roses or in white velvet with gold clasps and pearls or in some other richly simple outfit, would hover on the outer edge of the things her patroness enjoyed and watch sorrowfully. But sometimes she would wander off by herself for a while and watch the sea in the darkness.
The work she was supposed to be doing for Mrs. Wentworth seemed so indefinite and desultory that it often troubled her. It seemed to her that she was not giving enough service for all she was receiving. Of course there were always a few letters to be answered every day, and she had learned to answer them in a manner apparently quite satisfactory to her employer; at least she never found fault with her beyond correcting a few trifling mistakes. She seemed entirely content with this slight service and a few small errands occasionally. Her main desire seemed to be to have Fraley on call at any hour of the day or night. A less humble girl would have found out before many weeks had passed that Violet Wentworth wanted to show her off, that she looked upon her as a sort of possession to wield her social scepter with. But Fraley was never thinking of herself. It never entered her head that she was wanted for anything except the work that she could do, and she was most grateful always.
But one night she decided the time had come to write to her friend of the desert, the Raven, as she still called him.
In her rosy tulle, she sat down to the pleasant task, and she made a lovely picture indeed, with a smile on her lips and her eyes starry with memory.
It was a charming letter she wrote—frank and true, opening her heart concerning her many perplexities in the new life, which she could not tell to anyone else. The writing of it gave her great content. But she forgot to put in her New York address, and they were leaving for the mountains the next day. She had not even thought to write on hotel paper to give a clue to her whereabouts. This letter did not seem to her like other letters. It was almost like sending out a little prayer. She scarcely expected an answer.
The fall was coming on and the mountains were touched with crimson and gold, the woodbine on the rocks like flaming embroidery.
The hotel was swarming with people. Many of Mrs. Wentworth’s friends were there.
There was one tall gentleman at the next table in the dining room who troubled her greatly because he was constantly reminding her of someone, yet she could not think who it was. He had a large head of wavy white hair and keen blue, rather unhappy eyes. His mouth was drawn down at the corners as if he wanted everybody to get out of his way, and Fraley always got out of it if she possibly could.
He had a wife who never came down to breakfast, but neither did a lot of the other women there. This woman was wrinkled and painted and wore her hair marcelled so smoothly that it looked as if the waves were painted on a piece of white satin and fitted smoothly over her head. They had a grandson about fourteen who was always at odds with his grandfather and grandmother, particularly his grandfather.
One day Fraley found this boy out at the golf links, with no one to play with, and she scraped an acquaintance with him and played nine holes. They got along very well together and walked back to the hotel quite chummily. Just as they reached the steps, the boy told her his name was James MacPherson. He was being sent off to school the next day, and he didn’t want to go.
“Why, isn’t that funny!” said Fraley. “My name is MacPherson. Perhaps we are distant relatives somewhere back, who knows?”
“No such luck,” said the boy. “Gee, I wish I had a relative like you. You’re all right!”
She played tennis with him that afternoon, and they went down to the game room in the evening and played Ping Pong. He was a nice boy. She felt sorry for him. He said his father and mother were in Europe for a year, and his sister was in California, and he hated boarding school. He said he’d like to stay at home, but “Gramp had a grouch on and couldn’t see it.” Fraley got up the next morning early and played nine more holes of golf with him before he had to go and then felt forlorn and lonely as she saw him grinning good-bye to her as he drove off in the hotel bus down the mountain to the station.
After that she watched the grandfather and grandmother every day just because they belonged to the boy. She was sorry for them, they looked so discontented.
Looking at them and knowing they bore the same name made her think of her own father’s father and wonder if he was living.
She resolved to hunt him up as soon as she got back to New York and not delay any longer. No matter how he was or in what c
ircumstances, she ought to look him up. Whether she revealed her identity or not would depend on conditions, but she must find him and know what sort of person he was. Her mother evidently had wished that.
That very evening when they both came up to go to bed, Violet called her into her room and talked with her awhile. She asked her more about her own home and who her father and mother had been, and Fraley, naturally reticent and anxious to keep the secrets of her family, told very little. Her mother and father had married against the wishes of their parents and gone west and lost sight of their respective families. That was all. She acknowledged that she knew nothing of her relatives’ financial standing, though she supposed they would be comfortably off. Her mother had always spoken of having a good home, and she had spoken as if the MacPhersons were rather proud people. That was all she knew.
Violet Wentworth narrowed her eyes as she watched Fraley under her lashes.
“Fraley,” she said, “if you should find out that any of these relatives are well off and want you, would you wish to leave me and go to them?”
“I would not want to leave you,” said Fraley with a wistful look, “but I could not tell what I ought to do until I knew all about it. Their being well off would not make any difference. I would go to them sooner if they were poor for they might need me to help them some way.”
“You’re a dear child,” said Violet Wentworth with a sudden unusual gust of emotion and kissed her for the second time.
“Now, run off to bed, or you’ll lose your complexion and be just as bad as I am.”