Читать книгу The Wishing Moon - Louise Elizabeth Dutton - Страница 9

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Miss Judith Devereux Randall was getting into her first evening gown.

The Green River High School football team was giving its annual September concert and ball in Odd Fellows' Hall to-night. The occasion was as important to the school as a coming-out party. The new junior class, just graduated from seclusion upstairs to the big assembly room where the seniors were, made its first public appearance in society there. Judith was a junior now.

Her first dance, and her first evening gown; it was a memorable scene, fit to immortalize with the first love-letter and the first proposal, in a series of pictures of great moments in a girl's life—chosen by some masculine illustrator, touchingly confident that he knows what the great moments of a girl's life are. Judith seemed to be taking this moment too calmly for one.

The dress lay ready on the bed, fluffy and light and sheer, a white dream of a dress, with two unopened florist's boxes beside it, but there was no picturesque disarray of excited toilet-making in her big, brightly lighted room, and no dream-promoting candlelight. And there were no pennants or football trophies disfiguring the daintily flowered wall paper, and no pictures or programs in the mirror of the dainty dressing-table; there was no other young girl's room in town where they were prohibited, but there was no other room so charming as Judith's, all blue-flowered chintz and bird's-eye maple and white fur rugs, and whiter covers and curtains.

Judith was the most charming and immaculate thing in the room, as she stood before the cheval-glass, bare armed and slim and straight in beruffled, beribboned white, pinning the soft, pale braids tight around her small, high-poised head. Quite the most charming thing, and Norah, fingering the dress on the bed disapprovingly, and giving her keen, sidelong glances, was aware of it, but did not believe in compliments, even to the creature she loved best in the world.

Her mouth was set and her brown eyes were bright with the effort of repressing them. Judith, seeing her face in the glass, turned suddenly and slipped her arms round the formidable old creature's neck, and laughed at her.

"Don't you think I'm perfectly beautiful?" she demanded. "If you really love me, why not tell me so?"

"Your colour's good." Judith pressed a delicately flushed cheek to Norah's, and attempted a butterfly kiss, which she evaded grimly. "Good enough—healthy and natural."

"Oh, no. I made it. Oh, with hot water and then cold, I mean. Nana, don't begin about rouge. Don't be silly. That red stuff in the box on mother's dresser is only nail paste, truly."

"Who sent the flowers?"

"Look and see."

"Much you care, if you'll let me look."

"Do you want me to care?"

"Much you care about the flowers or the party."

Judith had caught up the alluring dress without a second glance, and slipped it expertly over her head, and was jerking capably at the fastenings.

"With the spoiled airs of you, and Willard Nash sending to Wells for flowers, when his father clerked in a drygoods store at his age——"

"Oh, carnations are cheap—or he wouldn't get them."

"These aren't cheap, then."

The smaller box was full of white violets.

"Give them to me. No, you can't see the card. You don't deserve to. You're too cross, and besides you wouldn't like it. Do my two top hooks. Now, am I perfectly beautiful?"

Under her capable hands a pretty miracle had been going on, common enough, but always new. Ruffle above ruffle, the soft, shapeless mass of white had shaken itself into its proper lines and contours, lightly, like a bird's plumage settling itself, and with it the change that comes when a woman with the inborn, unteachable trick of wearing clothes puts on a perfect gown, had come to her slight girl's figure. It looked softer, rounder, and more lightly poised. Her throat looked whiter above the encircling folds of white. Her shy half smile was sweeter. The white violets, caught to her high girdle, were sweeter, too.

Norah surrendered, her voice husky and reluctant.

"You're too good for them."

"For the G. H. S. dance? For Willard?" Judith pretended great humility: "Nana!"

"There's others you're more than too good for. Others——"

"Nana, don't."

"Come here." Norah put two heavy hands on her shoulders and regarded her grimly. It was the kind of look that Judith used to associate with second sight, and dread. It was quite formidable still. But Judith met it steadily, with something mature and assured about her look that had nothing to do with the softness and sweetness of her in her fluffy draperies, something that had no place in the heart of a child; something that Norah saw.

"Too good for them, and you know it," pronounced Norah. "You know it too well. You know too many things. A heart of gold you've got, but your head will rule your heart."

"Nonsense." Norah permitted herself to be kissed, still looking forbidding, but holding Judith tight.

"Little white lamb, may you find what's good enough for you," she conceded, unexpectedly, "and may you know it when you find it."

"You're an old dear, and you're good enough for me."

Downstairs there was a more critical audience to face. Judith saw it in the library door, and stood still on the stair landing, looking down. She held her head high, and coloured faintly. She looked very slender and white against the dark woodwork of the hall. The Randall house had been renovated the year before—becoming ten years older in the process, early Colonial instead of a comfortable mixture of late Colonial and mid-Victorian. The hall was particularly Colonial, and a becoming background for Judith, but the dark-haired lady in the door had no more faith in compliments than Norah, and there was a worried wrinkle in her low forehead to-night, as if her mind were on other things.

"Will I do, mother?"

"It's a good little gown, but there's something wrong with the neck line. You're really going then?"

"I thought I would."

"Be back by half-past ten. We're going to have some cards here. The Colonel likes you to pass things."

"I thought father's head ached."

"He's sleeping it off."

"I—wanted him to see how I looked."

"I can't see why you go."

"I thought I would. I'll go outside now, and wait for Willard."

Judith closed the early Colonial door softly behind her, and settled down on the steps. She arranged her coat, not the one her mother lent her for state occasions, but a white polo coat of her own, with due regard for her ruffles and her violets. The violets were from Colonel Everard. Norah, with her tiresome prejudice against the Everards, and mother, who thought and talked so much about them that she was almost tiresome, too, were both wrong about this party. She did want to go.

The church clock was striking nine. There was nothing deep toned or solemn about the chime; it was rather tinny, but she liked it. It sounded wide awake, as if things were going to happen. Nine, and the party was under way. The concert was almost over. The concert was only for chaperones and girls who were afraid of not getting their dance orders filled. The truly elect arrived just in time to dance. Some of them were passing the house already. Judith saw girls with light-coloured gowns showing under dark coats, and swathing veils that preserved elaborate coiffures. Bits of conversation, monosyllabic and formal, to fit the clothes, drifted across the lawn to her.

She had not been allowed to help decorate the hall, but she had driven with Willard to Nashes' Corners for goldenrod, and when they carried it in, big, glowing bundles of it, she had seen fascinating things: Japanese lanterns, cheesecloth in yellow and white, the school colours, still in the piece, and full of unguessable possibilities, and a rough board table, the foundation of the elaborately decorated counter where Rena and other girls would serve the fruit punch. All the time she dressed she had been listening for the music of Dugan's orchestra, and caught only tantalizing strains of tunes that she could not identify. There was a sameness about the repertoire. Most of the tunes sounded unduly sentimental and resigned. But now they were playing their star number, a dramatic piece of program music called "A Day on the Battlefield."

The day began with bird notes and bugle calls, but was soon enlivened by cavalry charges and cannonades. The drum, and an occasional blank cartridge, very telling in effect, were producing them now. Judith listened eagerly.

She needed friends of her own age for the next two years, but she must not identify herself with them too closely, because she would have wider social opportunities by and by; that was what her mother said, and she did not contest it; by and by, but this party was to-night.

Willard was coming for her now, half an hour ahead of time, as usual. He crossed the lawn, and sat heavily down on the steps.

"Hello. Don't talk," said Judith.

Willard was silent only long enough to turn this remark over in his mind, and decide that she could not mean it, but that was five minutes, for all his mental processes were slow. Down in the hall the last of the heroes was dying, and Dugan's orchestra rendered Taps sepulchrally. Judith drew a long breath of shivering content.

"Cold?" inquired Willard.

"No."

"You're looking great to-night."

"In the dark? In an old polo coat?"

"You always look great."

Judith was aware of an ominous stir beside her, and changed her position.

"Oh, Judy."

"When you know I won't let you hold my hand, what makes you try?"

"If I didn't try, how would I know?" said Willard neatly.

"Oh, if you don't know without trying," Judith sighed. The cannonade in the hall was over, and the night was empty without it.

"They took in thirteen dollars and fifty-two cents selling tickets for to-night." Willard, checked upon sentimental subjects, proceeded to facts. He had so many at command that he could not be checked.

"Who did?"

"The team. They divide it. Only this year they've got to let the sub-team in on it, the faculty made them, and they're sore. And there's a sub on the reception committee."

"I don't care."

"You ought to. A sub, and a roughneck. The sub-team is a bunch of roughnecks, but he's the worst. On the reception committee! But they'll take it out of him."

"Who? The reception committee?"

"No, the girls. They won't dance with him. He won't get a decent name on his card. Roughneck, keeping Ed off the team. He's an Irish boy."

"An Irish boy?" Something, vague as an unforgotten dream that comes back at night, though you are too busy to recall it in waking hours, urged Judith to protest. "So is the senior president Irish."

"No, the vice-president." There was a wide distinction between the two offices. "Besides"—this was a wider distinction—"Murph lives at the Falls."

Living at the Falls, the little settlement at the head of the river, and lunching at noon, in the empty schoolhouse, out of tin boxes, with a forlorn assembly of half a dozen or so, was a handicap that few could live down.

"Murph?"

"The team calls him Murphy. I don't know why. They're crazy about him. He lives a half mile north of the Falls. Walking five miles a day to learn Latin! He's a fool and a roughneck, but he can play ball. Yesterday on Brown's field——"

Willard started happily upon technicalities of football formations. Judith stopped listening. He could talk on unaided, pausing only for an occasional yes or no.

Brown's field! It was a tree-fringed stretch of level grass set high at the edge of the woods, on the other side of the river, with glimpses of the river showing through the trees far below. Here, on long autumn afternoons, sparkling and cool, but golden at the heart, ending gloriously in red, sudden sunsets, football practice went on every day; shifting here and there, mysteriously, over the field, the arbitrary evolutions that were football, the shuffling, and shouting, and panting silence; on rugs and sweaters under the trees, an audience of girls, shivering delightfully, or holding some hero's sweater, too proud to be cold.

Judith had seen all this through Willard's eyes, or from a passing carriage, but now she would go herself, go perhaps every day. Her mother would let her. She would not understand, but she would let her, just as she had to-night. Judith could be part of the close-knit life of the school in the last two years there—the years that counted. The party was a test and her mother had met it favourably. That was why she was glad to go, as nearly as she understood. She did not know quite what she wanted of the party, only how very much she wanted to go.

Willard was asking a question insistently: "Didn't he do pretty work?"

"Who?"

"Why, the fellow I'm telling you about—the roughneck."

"Roughneck," said Judith dreamily. The word had a fine, strong sound. Willard was holding her hand again, and she felt too comfortable and content to stop him.

The orchestra down the street was playing the number that usually ended its programs, a medley of plantation melodies. They were never such a strain on the resources of a hard-working but only five-piece orchestra as the ambitious, martial selections, and here, heard across the dark, they were beautiful: plaintive and thrillingly sweet. "Old Kentucky Home," was the sweetest of all, lonely and sad as youth, and insistent as youth, claiming its own against an alien world.

"Oh, Willard!" breathed Judith. Then, in quite another tone, "Oh, Willard!"

Encouraged by her silence, he was reaching for her other hand, and slipping an arm round her waist.

"You feel so soft," objected Judith frankly, getting up. "I do hope I'll never fall in love with a fat man. Come on, let's go!"

She waited for him politely on the sidewalk, and permitted her arm to be duly grasped. Willard, sulky and silent, but preserving appearances, piloted her dutifully down the street. Willard's silences were rare, and Judith usually made the most of them, but she did not permit this one to last. She did not want any one, even Willard, to be unhappy to-night.

"Willard."

"What?"

"Don't take such long steps, or I can't keep up with you. You're so tall."

"Do you want to be late?"

"Oh, no! Are we?"

"No."

"But there's only one couple behind us, and the music's stopped."

"It takes half an hour to get the chairs moved out."

"Willard."

"Well?"

"Is the first dance a grand march and circle?"

"No, that's gone out. They have contras instead, but the first is a waltz."

"Willard, mother said I mustn't dance contras, but I shall—with you."

"Well!"

"Don't you want me to?"

"Yes."

"Willard, are you cross with me?"

"No." They were in front of the Odd Fellows' Building now. The door was open. The pair behind them crowded past and clattered hurriedly up the bare, polished stairs. The orchestra could be heard tuning industriously above. They were almost late, but Willard drew her into a corner of the entrance hall, and pressed her hand ardently.

"Judy, I couldn't be cross with you."

"Don't be too sure!" Judith laughed, and ran upstairs ahead of him.

"There's the ladies' dressing-room. I'll get the dance orders and meet you outside."

There was a whispering, giggling crowd in the dressing-room, mostly seniors, girls she did not know, but they seemed to know her, and she was conscious of curious looks at her hair and dress. It was the simplest dress in the room, and her mother would not have approved of the other dresses, but Judith did. There was something festive about the bright colours, too bright most of them: sharp pinks, and cold, hard blues. There was a yellow dress on a brunette, who was cheapened by the crude colour, and a scarlet dress too bright for any one to wear successfully on a big, pretty blond girl, who almost could. Judith smelled three distinct kinds of cheap talcum powder, and preferred them all to her own unscented French variety. She had a moment of sudden loneliness. Was she so glad to be here, after all?

It was only a moment. The tuning of instruments outside broke off, and the first bars of a waltz droned invitingly out: "If you really love me," the song that had been in her ears all the evening, a flimsy ballad of the year, hauntingly sweet, as only such short-lived songs can be. Moving to the tune of it, Judith crowded with the other girls out of the dressing-room.

The hall was transformed. It was not the room she had dreamed of, a great room, dimly lit, peopled with low-talking dancers, circling through the dimness. The place looked smaller decorated, and the decorations themselves seemed to have shrunk since she saw them. The lanterns had been hung only where nails were already driven, and under the supervision of the janitor, who would not permit them to be lighted. The cheesecloth was conspicuous nowhere except around the little stage, which it draped in tight, mathematically measured festoons. Beneath, under the misleading legend, "G. H. S.," painted in yellow on a suspended football, Dugan's orchestra performed its duties faithfully, with handkerchiefs guarding wilted collars.

The goldenrod, tortured and wired into a screen to hide the footlights, was drooping away already and showing the supporting wires. The benches were stacked against the wall, all but an ill-omened row designed for wall-flowers, and the floor was cleared and waxed. But little patches of wax that were not rubbed in lurked for unwary feet, and there were clouds of dust in the air. In one corner of the hall most of the prominent guests of the evening were attempting to obtain dance orders at once, or to push their way back with them to the young ladies they were escorting.

These ladies, and other ladies without escorts, were crowding each other against the stacked benches and maneuvering for positions where their dance orders would fill promptly. The atmosphere was one of strife and stress. But Judith found no fault with it. She was not aware of it.

In a corner near the stage, by the closed door of the refreshment-room, a boy was standing alone. He was tearing up his dance order. It was empty, and he was making no further attempts to fill it. He tore it quite unostentatiously so that no young lady disposed to be amused by his defeat could see anything worth staring at in his performance, and he was forgotten in his corner. But Judith stared.

She had remembered him tall, but he was only a little taller than herself. His black suit was shiny, and a size too small for him, but it was carefully brushed, and he wore it with an air. His hair was darker than she remembered, a pale, soft brown. It was too long, and it curled at the temples. He stood squarely, facing the room, as if he did not care what anybody did to him, but there was a look about his mouth as if he cared. He raised his eyes. They were darker than she remembered, darker and stranger than any eyes in the world. They looked hurt, but there was a laugh in them, too, and across the hall they were looking straight at Judith.

"Here you are. I've got myself down for all your contras. Just in time."

Willard, mopping his brow, slipping on a patch of wax, and saving himself with a skating motion, brought up triumphantly beside her, waving two dance orders. Judith pushed them away, and said something—she hardly knew what.

"What, Judy? What's that? You're engaged for this? You can't dance it with me?"

"No. No, I can't."

Judith slipped past him, and started across the floor. The music was louder now, as if you were really meant to dance, and dance with the person you wanted to most. The floor was filling now with dancers stepping forward awkwardly, but turning into different creatures when they danced, caught by the light, sure swing of the music, whirling and gliding. The words sang themselves to Judith, the silly, beautiful words:

Please don't keep me waiting. Won't you let me know That you really love me? Tell—me—so.

A girl in red was dancing in a quick, darting sort of way, in and out, among the others, and her dress was beautiful, too, like a flower. The boy in the corner was watching it. He did not see Judith come.

"I thought you couldn't be real. When I never saw you again I thought I had dreamed you."

Judith said it softly and breathlessly, and he did not hear. She put her hand on his arm, and he turned and looked at her.

"Don't you remember me?" Judith was too happy to be hurt even by this. The light, sweet music called to her. "Don't you remember? Never mind! Come and dance with me."