Читать книгу Elsie Marley, Honey - Joslyn Gray - Страница 7

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The stranger, who was dressed in a rather graceful and perhaps rather flamboyant adaptation of the prevailing fashion, was picturesque and radiant to the extreme: slender, dark, vivid, with big, dark eyes in a small pointed face, dark hair "bobbed" and curling sufficiently to turn under about her ears and neck, a rather large mouth flanked by really extraordinary dimples, and an expression at once gay and saucy and sweet and appealing withal. Her voice was very sweet, her unusually finished pronunciation and enunciation giving a curious effect to her slangy speech. She wore her clothes jauntily, carried herself with charming grace, and her great dimples made her frank smile irresistible.

"Do you know, I've been simply crazy all the way to come and speak to you," she confessed as soon as they were outside. "I spotted you the very first thing, but I was rather phased by that woman with you. Wasn't she the—goodness gracious! I hope she wasn't any relation—your aunt or mother?"

"Oh, no indeed, scarcely an acquaintance," returned the other, surprised that any one should even conjecture that Mrs. Bennet might be connected with her. Then it occurred to her that Cousin Julia might be even worse!

"I never met her until a week ago," she went on languidly. "She happened to be a friend of my lawyer's wife, and he wished me to come as far as I could in her company. I suppose I oughtn't to travel the rest of the way alone, but he didn't make any other arrangement."

"Oh, it isn't bad. I've come all the way alone and everything's been jolly. I've made awfully good friends, though they're all either elderly or children. So your being about my age only made me want to know you the more. Well, now that we're acquainted, we'll have to make the most of what's left of the way. I am Elsie Moss and I was sixteen Christmas day. Aren't you about that age?"

"I am sixteen, Miss Moss," returned Elsie Marley formally.

"But don't call me Miss," pleaded the other. "Everybody calls me Elsie."

Elsie Marley did not reply. She disliked the idea that the unchaperoned stranger should be Elsie, also, and should even have the same initials. Her imagination was limited; still it occurred to her that the situation would have been much worse had the girl happened to bear the surname Pritchard.

She stifled a sigh. They seemed to be getting acquainted perforce. Now that she was out, however, she didn't care to go back at once, even though the sun beat down upon them fiercely, and the dry grass was full of dust and cinders. She glanced about irresolutely.

"Now if this were a scene in a play," remarked Elsie Moss reflectively, "the engine would have broken down near a grove with immemorial trees, or there'd be a dell hard by where the hero and heroine could wander by a stream. Or else—" she hesitated. "You don't feel comfy, do you?"

"The sun is so hot, it's hardly safe to be out. I'd better go in again," replied the other.

"But the car'll be awfully hot, too, standing right in the sun. I know—I'll get an umbrella."

She rushed off at full speed lest the other should remonstrate—something that Elsie Marley didn't think of doing. She accepted the favor as a matter of course, and they walked on slowly, the one restraining her eager feet with difficulty.

"Oh, dear, I suppose you're going to New York, too?" she asked. "Everybody seems to be except poor me."

The other returned a spiritless affirmative.

"Of course! Oh, dear, and I'm simply perishing to go! But I'm due in a poky little place in Massachusetts called Enderby. Isn't that the limit? The name alone would queer the place, don't you think so? It's fairly near Boston, but they say Boston's slow compared with New York or even with San Francisco."

She waited a moment, then rattled on.

"Do you know, sometimes it seems my duty to go to New York. I've got five hundred dollars all my own. Dad had a long sickness, and, anyhow, he never got much ahead; but he left me that clear, and I'm just going to beg and implore my uncle on bended knee to let me take it and go to New York to study. I could get a start with that, I'm sure."

She looked up so eagerly that something strange seemed to stir within the quiet girl. It was almost as if she would have liked to express her sympathy had she known how. And when the light suddenly died out of the sparkling eyes and even the shadows of the dimples disappeared, she felt almost at fault.

The other girl did not resent her want of sympathy, however.

"But he'll never, never consent," she went on mournfully, "because he's an orthodox minister and I want to be an actress. Of course he couldn't approve, and I ought not to blame him. And yet, if I wait until I'm of age, I'll be too old. I'd like to run away right now, but for the row it would make and for frightening auntie. Really, you know, I'd rather join the circus than go to Enderby."

"But I have always understood that to be an actress one must go through much that—isn't nice," remarked Elsie Marley in her colorless voice.

"Oh, but that's half the fun—the struggle against odds," exclaimed Miss Moss with the assurance of untried youth. "Our class motto at the high school was 'Per aspera ad astra.' Isn't that fine and inspiring?"

The other assented listlessly,

A breeze had arisen, and now, at a little distance from the track, the air, though warm, was fresh and sweet. The yellowed grass extended to the brilliant blue of the sky as far as the eye could reach. For the first time, perhaps, in centuries, the plain was peopled by a throng; for by now nearly every one in the long train had come out. Men stood in groups discussing politics and the Mexican affair; women wandered sedately about, most of them keeping a watchful eye upon the engine, as if it might suddenly start and plunge on, dragging an empty train of cars; children ran and frisked and shouted, making the most of the occasion, as only children can. The two Elsies happened to be the only young girls.

They had gone some little distance beyond the others. Failing to draw out her companion, Elsie Moss took it for granted that she was shy, and chatted on about her own affairs, hoping presently to effect an exchange of confidences.

"I can't help wondering what my uncle will be like," she said soberly, thrusting her hand into the pocket of her coat. "You see, I've never seen him, though he and my mother were the greatest chums ever when they were young—almost like twins, though he was heaps older. But mother went to California when she married and I was born there, and though he always meant to, he never got out to see us. His wife couldn't stand the journey. And when mother died, he was way over in Egypt, so of course he didn't come. All that I know is that he's handsome and dignified and lives in a very proper place where they have everything correct and conventional—musical advantages and oratorios and lectures on Emerson, and village improvement and associated charities and all that, but no vaudeville nor movies. I suppose if there were a theatre they'd only play Ibsen and Bernard Shaw."

Elsie Marley opened her eyes rather wider than usual. For it all sounded attractive to her, particularly in contrast with the boarding-house and New York.

"He's awfully religious-looking, you know," Elsie Moss continued. "He wears the same sort of waistcoats and collars the Episcopalians do, though he's a Congregationalist, and his picture is more than dignified, I can tell you. Well, no doubt he's dreading me just as much as I am him, or else he's expecting me to be just like mother and will have the surprise of his life."

She hesitated. "I suppose I do look like her," she added gently and quite as if she believed the other girl to be deeply interested. Then her voice dropped suddenly and her eyes filled with tears. "Mother died—in the earthquake," she added.

Something vaguely uncomfortable just stirred the surface of Elsie Marley's consciousness, though it wasn't sufficiently acute to be called a pang. The earthquake had happened seven or eight years ago—and this girl's grief seemed fresh to-day. Her own mother had been dead less than three years.

She did not acknowledge that her mother was only a memory. She hardly realized it, indeed. Only, conscious of that vague, strange discomfort, she had an impulse to get away from it. She put a languid question.

"What have you done since?"

"I've learned what a difference mothers make," returned the girl soberly. Then she darted suddenly outside the range of the umbrella.

"What's that? A gopher?" she cried. "Oh, my goodness, it's only one of those ridiculous Dutch dogs.

"It might have been, you know," she said as she returned to the shade. Then she resumed the subject she had dropped. Elsie Marley said to herself that she needn't listen, but as a matter of fact she heard every word.

"I was so small I couldn't do much, and we had an awful time for a year. Dad was always more or less hard up, but he was worse after the earthquake, and if we had a servant she wasted things so that he was wild. He married again—a schoolteacher, and it wasn't a year, quite, after—the earthquake. Most people didn't blame him, but Uncle John where I'm going did, and wanted me to come right on East and live with him, but dad wouldn't hear of it. And, anyhow, she was the nicest thing. I loved her dearly at the end of a week. She wanted to keep me with her after dad died, but my uncle insisted upon my coming to him, so here I am."

She looked into the other girl's eyes half appealingly, though her big dimples were dimly visible.

"She wouldn't stand for my being an actress, either, so there you are. And I liked her so much I couldn't half urge her. And that's the worst of it; if I stay with my uncle the least little while I shall get to liking him so much I shan't be able to run away. It's perfectly terrible to get so fond of people when you want a career. I suppose the thing to do would really be to disappear right now. Oh, not this moment, but simply never to go to Enderby. Suppose I should go right on to New York with you?"

Elsie Marley gazed at her without a word and almost without expression. But within, she was secretly roused. She marvelled at the stranger's audacity. She was surprised to feel that she was not bored. She decided that she would not return to the car until they should be summoned.

As she was fumbling in her mind for the response the Moss girl evidently awaited, one of the children whose acquaintance the latter had made came running up to her and shyly took her hand and kissed it. Again putting the umbrella into the other girl's hands, Elsie Moss impulsively caught the little thing into her arms and fondled her. Then dropping her gently, she took both the little hands in hers and danced away with her.

They made a charming picture against the long, yellow prairie-grass. The little girl moved with the grace of a child, but Elsie Moss danced like a fairy. Her cheeks glowed, her dark eyes shone, her dimples twinkled, her feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground. Her red hat was like a poppy-cup, and the dark hair tumbling about her little face, elf-locks. Elsie Marley gazed spellbound.

But only for a moment; on a sudden she turned and made her way back to the car, which was almost empty. She returned not because she wanted to, not even because she was indifferent as to what she did. She went because she didn't want to. Unconsciously she was struggling against yielding to the charm of the vivid young creature who threatened to take her by storm. In all her life she had never been deeply or warmly affected by another personality. Perhaps now she realized this dimly, and some instinct warned her subtly to avoid any departure from old habitude, even when avoidance meant the first real struggle she had ever made against definite inclination.

It seemed long before the other occupants of the car began to stroll in. Then the engine whistled sharp warning, the laggards trooped back, and the train started briskly. Elsie Moss entered by the rear door, as Elsie Marley knew, though she did not turn around. She said to herself that no doubt she would be upon her directly, that she would have her company for the rest of the day and the remainder of the journey. But she established herself in the middle of the seat lest she seem to give any invitation.