Читать книгу A New Name (Musaicum Vintage Mysteries) - Grace Livingston Hill - Страница 8

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Grevet’s was a fine old marble mansion just off the avenue with its name in gold script and heavy silken draperies at the plate-glass windows. It had the air of having caught and imprisoned the atmosphere of the old aristocracy that used to inhabit that section of the city. The quiet distinction of the house seemed to give added dignity to the fine old street, where memories of other days still lingered to remind old residents of a time when only the four hundred trod the sacred precincts of those noble mansions.

Inside the wrought-iron grill-work of its outer entrance, the quiet distinction became more intense. No footstep sounded from the deep pile of imported carpets that covered the floors. Gray floors, lofty walls done in pearl and gray and cream. Upholstery of velvet toning with the walls and floor. And lightwonderful perfect lightsoftly diffused from the walls themselves, seemingly, making it clear as the morning, yet soft with the radiance of moonlight. A pot of daffodils in one window, just where the silken curtain was slightly drawn to the street. A crystal bowl of parma violets on a tiny table of teak wood. An exquisite cushion of needlepoint blindingly intricate in its delicate design and minute stitches. One rare painting of an old Greek temple against a southern sky and sea. That was Grevet’s.

And when you entered there was no one present at first. It was very still, like entering some secret hall of silence. You almost felt like an intruder unless you were of the favored ones who came often to have their wants supplied.

A period of overwhelming waiting, of hesitation lest you might have made a mistake after all, and then Madame, in a costume of stunning simplicity, would glance out from some inner sanctum, murmur a command, and out would come a slim attendant in black satin frock and hair, cut seemingly off the same piece of cloth, and demand your need, and later would come forth the mannequins and models wearing creations of distinction that would put the lily’s garb to shame.

It was in the mysterious sidelines somewhere, from which they issued forth unexpectedly upon the purchaser of garments, that a group of these attendants stood conversing, just behind Madame’s inner sanctum, in low tones because Madame might return at any moment, and Madame did not permit comments on the customers.

“She was a beautiful girl,” said one whose high color under tired eyes, and boyish haircut on a mature head, were somehow oddly at variance. “She was different”

“Yes, different!” spoke another crisply with an accent. “Quite different, and attractive, yes. But she had no style. She wore her hair like one who didn’t care for style. Pretty, yes, but not at all the thing. Quite out. She didn’t seem to belong to him at all. She was not like any of the girls he has brought here before.”

“And yet she had distinction.”

“Yes,” hesitating, “distinction of a kind. But more the distinction of another universe.”

“Oh, come down to earth, Miss Lancey,” cried a round little model with face a shade too plump. “You’re always up in the clouds. She had no style, and you know it. That coat she wore was one of those nineteen-ninety-eight coats in Simon’s window. I see them every night when I go home. I knew it by those tricky little pockets. Quite cute they are, with good lines, but cheap and common, of course. She was nothing but a poor girl. Why try to make out she was something else? She has a good figure, of course, and pretty features, if one likes that angelic type, but no style in the world.”

“She was stunning in the black velvet,” broke in the first speaker stubbornly. “I can’t help itI think she had style. There was somethingwell, kind of gracious about her, as if she were a lady in disguise.”

“Oh, Florence, you’re so hopelessly romantic! That’s way behind the times. You don’t find Cinderellas nowadays. Things are more practical. If a lady has a disguise, she takes it off. That’s more up to date.”

“Well, you know yourself she was different. You can’t say she wasn’t perfectly at home with those clothes. She wore them like a princess.”

“She had a beautiful form,” put in an older salesperson. “That’s a whole lot.”

“It takes something more than form,” said the girl persistently. “You know that Charlotte Bakerman had a form. They said she was perfect in every measurement, but she walked like a cow, and she carried herself like a gorilla in a tree when she sat down.”

“Oh, this girl was graceful, if that’s what you mean,” conceded the fat one ungraciously.

“It wasn’t just grace, either,” persisted the champion of the unknown customer. “She didn’t seem to be conscious she had on anything unusual at all. She walked the same way when she came in. She walked the same way when she went out in her nineteen ninety-eight. She sort of glorified it. And when she had on the Lanvin green ensemble, it was just as if she had always worn such things. It sort of seemed to belong to her, as if she was born with it, like a bird’s feathers.”

“I know what you mean,” said the woman with tired eyes and artificial blush. “She wasn’t thinking about her clothes. They weren’t important to her. She would only care if they were suitable. And she would know at a glance without discussing it whether they were suitable. You saw how she looked at that flashy little sports frock, the one with the three shades of red stripes and a low red leather belt. She just turned away and said in a low tone: ‘Oh, not that one, Murray!’ as if it hurt her.”

“Did she call him Murray?” asked the fat one greedily.

“Yes. They seemed to know each other real well. She was almost as if she might have been a sister, only we know he hasn’t got any sisters. She might have been a country cousin.”

“Perhaps he’s going to marry her!” suggested the fat one.

“Nonsense!” said the first girl sharply. “She’s not his kind. Imagine the magnificent Mrs. Van Rensselaer mothering anything that wore a nineteen-ninety-eight coat from Simon’s! Can you? Besides, they say he’s going to marry the Countess Lenowski when she gets her second divorce.”

“I don’t think that girl would marry a man like Murray Van Rensselaer,” spoke the thoughtful one. “She has too much character. She had a remarkable face.”

“Oh, you can’t tell by a face,” shrugged a slim one with sinuous body and a sharp black lock of hair pasted out on her cheek. “She can’t be much, or she wouldn’t let him buy her clothes.”

“She didn’t!” said the first speaker sharply. “I heard her say, ‘I wouldn’t think she would like that, Murray. It’s too noticeable. I’m sure a nice girl wouldn’t like that as well as the blue chiffon.’”

“Hmm!” said the slim one. “Looks as if she must be a relative or something. Did anybody get her name?”

“The address on the box was Elizabeth Chapparelle,” contributed a pale little errand girl who had stood by listening.

“Elizabeth!” said the thoughtful one. “She looked like an Elizabeth.”

“But if they weren’t for her, that wouldn’t have been her name,” persisted the fat one.

“I thought I heard him call her Bessie once,” said the little errand girl.

“Then he was buying for one of his old girls who is going to be married,” suggested the slim one contemptuously. “Probably this girl is a friend of them both.”

“Hush! Madame is coming! Which one did he take? The Lanvin green?”

“Both. He told Madame to send them both! Yes, Madame, I’m coming!”

A boy in a mulberry uniform with silver buttons entered.

“Say, Lena, take that to Madame, and tell her there’s a mistake. The folks say they don’t know anything about it.”

Lena, the pale little errand girl, took the heavy box and walked slowly off to find Madame, studying the address on the box as she went.

“Why!” She paused by the thoughtful-eyed woman. “It’s her. It’s that girl!” Madame appeared suddenly with a frown.

“What’s this, Lena? How many times have I told you not to stop to talk? Where are you carrying that box?”

“Thomas says there’s a mistake in the address. The folks don’t know anything about it.”

“Where is Thomas? Send him to me. Here, Thomas. What’s the matter? Couldn’t you find the house? The address is perfectly plain.”

“Sure, I found the house, Madame, but they wouldn’t take it in. They said they didn’t know anything about it. It wasn’t theirs.”

“Did they say Miss Chapparelle didn’t live there? Who came to the door?”

“An old woman with white hair. Yes, she said Miss Chapparelle lived there. She said she was her daughter, but that package didn’t belong to her. She said she never bought anything at this place.”

“Well, you can take it right back,” said Madame sharply. “Tell the woman the young lady knows all about it. Tell her it will explain itself when the young lady opens it. There’s a card inside. And Thomas,” she added, hurrying after him as he slid away to the door and speaking in a lower voice, “Thomas, you leave it there no matter what she says. It’s all paid for, and I’m not going to be bothered this way. You’re to leave it no matter what she says, you understand?”

“Sure, Madame, I understand. I’ll leave it.”

The neat little delivery car, with its one word, Grevet’s, in silver script on a mulberry background, slid away on its well-oiled wheels, and the service persons in their black satin straight frocks turned their black satin bobbed heads and looked meaningfully at one another with glances that said eagerly: “I told you so. That girl was different!” and Madame looked thoughtfully out of her side window into the blank brick wall of the next building and wondered how this was going to turn out. She did not want to have those expensive outfits returned, and she could not afford to anger young Van Rensselaer; he was too good a customer. Hehad expected her to carry out his instructions. It might be that she would have to go herself to explain the matter. Anyone could see that girl was too unsophisticated to understand. Her mother would probably be worse. She would have notions. Madame had had a mother once herself, so long ago she had forgotten many of her precepts, but she could understand. Madame was clever. This was going to be a case requiring clever action. But Madame was counting much upon Thomas. Thomas, too, could be clever on occasion. That was why he wore the silver buttons on the mulberry uniform and earned a good salary. Thomas knew that his silver buttons depended on his getting things across when Madame spoke to him as she had just done, and Madame believed Thomas would get this across.

In the early dusk of the evening when it came closing time at Grevet’s, the service women in chic wraps and small cloche hats flocked stylishly out into the city and made their various ways home. The thoughtful one and the outspoken one wound their way together out toward the avenue and up toward obscure streets tucked in between finer ones, walking to save carfare; for even those who worked at Grevet’s, there were circumstances in which it was wise in good weather to save carfare.

Their way led past the houses of wealth, a trifle longer perhaps, but pleasanter, with a touch of something in the air which their narrow lives had missed but which they liked to be near and enjoy if only in the passing. Their days at Grevet’s had fostered this love of the beautiful and real, perhaps, that made a glimpse into the windows of the great a pleasant thing: the drifting of a rare lace curtain, the sight of masses of flowers within, the glow of a handsome lamp, and the mellow shadows of a costly room, the sound of fine machinery as the limousines passed almost noiselessly, the quiet perfect service of the butler at the door, the well-groomed women who got out of the cars and went in, delicately shod, to eat dinners that others had prepared, with no thought or worry about expense. These were more congenial surroundings to walk amid, even if it took one a block or two farther out of the way, than a crowded street full of common rushing people, jostling and worried like themselves, and the air full of the sordid things of life.

They were talking about the events of the day, as people will, the happenings of their little world, the only points of contact they had in common out of their separate lives.

“How much have you sold today, Mrs. Hanley?” questioned the girl eagerly. “I had the biggest sale this month yet.”

The sad-eyed one smiled pleasantly.

“Oh, I had a pretty good day, Florence. This is always a good time of year, you know.”

“Yes, I know. Everybody getting new things.” She sighed with a fierce longing that she, too, might have plenty of money to get new things. A sigh like that was easily translatable by her companion. But for some reason Mrs. Hanley shrank tonight from the usual wail that the girl would soon bring up about the unfairness of the division of wealth in the world, perhaps because she, too, was wondering how to make both ends meet and get the new things that were necessary. She roused herself to change the subject. They were passing the Van Rensselaer mansion now, well known to both of them. She snatched at the first subject that presented itself.

“Why do you suppose Madame is so anxious to please that young man when everybody says he doesn’t pay his bills?”

“Oh,” said Florence almost bitterly, “she knows his dad’ll pay ‘em. It’s everything to have a name like that. He could get away with almost anything if he just told people who he was.”

“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Hanley almost sadly. “But I hope that girl doesn’t keep those clothes. She’s too fine for such as he is.”

“Yes, isn’t she?” said Florence eagerly. “I suppose most folks would think we were crazy talking like that. He’s considered a great catch. But somehow I couldn’t see a girl like that getting soiled with being tied up to a man that’s got talked about as much as he has. She’s different. There aren’t many like that living. That is the way she looks to me. Why, she’s like some angel just walking the earth because she has to; at least that’s the impression her face gave to me. Just as if she didn’t mind things us other folks think so much about; she had higher, wonderful things to think about. I don’t often see anyone that stirs me up this way and makes me think about my mother. I guess I ain’t much myself, never expected to be, but when you see someone that is, you can’t help but think!”

After that incoherent sentence, Florence, with a cheerful good night, turned off at her corner, and Mrs. Hanley went home to a little pent-up room high up in a fourth-rate boardinghouse, to wash off her makeup and prepare a tiny supper on a small gas stove, and be a mother for a few brief hours to her little crippled son, who lay on a tiny couch by the one window all day long and waited for her to come.