Читать книгу Dorothy's House Party - Raymond Evelyn - Страница 2

Those who must go went quickly. By trains and boats, the various guests who had gathered at Deerhurst to welcome Dorothy’s home-coming had departed, and at nightfall the great house seemed strangely empty and deserted. Even Ma Babcock had relinquished her post as temporary housekeeper and had hurried across the river to nurse a seriously ill neighbor.

“I may be back tomorrer and I may not be back till the day after never! I declare I’m all of a fluster, what with Mis’ Calvert goin’ away sort of leavin’ me in charge – though them old colored folks o’ her’n didn’t like that none too well! – and me havin’ to turn my back on duty this way. But sickness don’t wait for time nor tide and typhoid’s got to be tended mighty sharp; and I couldn’t nohow refuse to go to one Mis’ Judge Satterlee’s nieces, she that’s been as friendly with me as if I was a regular ’ristocratic like herself. No, when a body’s earned a repitation for fetchin’ folks through typhoid you got to live up to it. Sorry, Dolly C.; but I’ll stow the girls, Barry and Clarry and the rest, ’round amongst the neighbors somewhere, ’fore I start. As for you, Alfy – ”

“Oh, Mrs. Babcock! Don’t take Alfy away! Please, please don’t!” cried Dorothy, fairly clutching at the matron’s flying skirts, already disappearing through the doorway.

Mrs. Babcock switched herself free and answered through the opening:

“All right. Alfy can do as she likes. She can go down help tend store to Liza Jane’s, t’other village, where she’s been asked to go more’n once, or finish her visit to you. Ary one suits me so long as you don’t let nor hender me no more.”

Not all of this reply was distinct, for it was finished on the floor above, whither the energetic farm-wife had sped to “pack her duds”; but enough was heard to set Alfaretta skipping around the room in an ecstasy of delight, exclaiming:

“I’m to be to the House Party! Oh! I’m to be to the Party!”

But this little episode had been by daylight, and now the dusk had fallen. The great parlors were shut and dark. Prudent old Ephraim had declared:

“I ain’t gwine see my Miss Betty’s substance wasted, now she’s outer de way he’se’f. One lamp in de hall’s ernuf fo’ seein’ an’ doan’ none yo chillen’s go foolin’ to ast mo’.”

So the long halls were dim and full of shadows; the wind had risen and howled about the windows, which were being carefully shuttered by the servants against the coming storm which Dinah prophesied would prove the “ekernoctial” and a “turr’ble one”; and to banish the loneliness which now tormented her, Dorothy proposed:

“Let’s go into the library. There’s a fine fire on the hearth and the big lamp is stationary. Ephraim can’t find fault with us for using that. We’ll make out a list of the folks to ask. You, Alfy, shall do the writing, you do write such a fine, big hand. Come on, Molly girl! I’m so glad you begged to stay behind your Auntie Lu. Aren’t you?”

“Ye-es, I reckon so!” answered the little Southerner, with unflattering hesitation. “But it’s mighty lonesome in this big house without her and West Point’s just – just heavenly!”

“Any place would be ‘heavenly’ to you, Molly Breckenridge, that was full of boys!” retorted Dolly. “But don’t fancy you’d be allowed to see any of those cadets even if you were there. Beg pardon, girlie, I don’t want to be cross, but how can I have a decent party if you don’t help? Besides, there’s Monty and Jim left. They ought to count for something.”

“Count for mighty little, seems if, the way they sneak off by themselves and leave us alone. Gentlemen, Southern gentlemen, wouldn’t act that way!”

“Oh, sillies! What’s the use of spoiling a splendid time? It’s just like a cow givin’ a pailful of milk then turnin’ round and kickin’ it over!” cried good-natured Alfy, throwing an arm around each girl’s shoulders and playfully forcing her into the cheery library and into a great, soft chair. Of course, they all laughed and hugged one another and acknowledged that they had been “sillies” indeed; and a moment later three girlish heads were bending together above the roomy table, whereon was set such wonderful writing materials as fairly dazzled Alfaretta’s eyes. So impressed was she that she exclaimed as if to herself:

“After all, I guess I won’t be a trained nurse nor a opera singer. I’ll be a writin’ woman and have just such pens and things as these.”

“Oh, Alfy, you funny dear! You change your mind just as often as I used to!”

“Don’t you change it no more, then, Dorothy C.?” demanded the other, quickly.

“No. I don’t think I shall ever change it again. I shall do everything the best I can, my music and lessons and all that, but it’ll be just for one thing. I lay awake last night wondering how best I could prove grateful for all that’s come to me and I reckon I’ve found out, and it’s so – so simple, too.”

“Ha! Let’s hear this fine and simple thing, darling Dolly Doodles, and maybe we’ll both follow your illustrious example!” cried Molly, smiling.

“To – to make everybody I know as – as happy as I can;” answered the other slowly.

“Huh! That’s nothing! And you can begin right now, on ME!” declared Miss Alfaretta Babcock, with emphasis.

“How?”

“Help me to tell who’s to be invited.”

“All right. Head the list with Alfaretta Babcock.”

“Cor-rect! I’ve got her down already. Next?”

“Molly Breckenridge.”

“Good enough. Down she goes. Wait till I get her wrote before you say any more.”

They waited while Alfy laboriously inscribed the name and finished with the exclamation:

“That’s the crookedest back-name I ever wrote.”

“You acted as if it hurt you, girlie! You wriggled your tongue like they do in the funny pictures;” teased Molly, but the writer paid no heed.

“Next?”

“Dorothy Calvert.”

“So far so good. But them three’s all girls. To a party there ought to be as many boys. That’s the way we did to our last winter’s school treat,” declared Alfaretta.

“Well, there’s Jim Barlow. He’s a boy.”

“He’s no party kind of a boy,” objected Molly, “and he’s only —us. She hasn’t anybody down that isn’t us, so far. We few can’t make a whole party.”

But Dolly and Alfy were wholly serious.

“Montmorency Vavasour-Stark,” suggested the former, and the writer essayed that formidable name. Then she threw down the pen in dismay, exclaiming:

“You’ll have to indite that yourself or spell it out to me letter by letter. He’ll take more’n a whole line if I write him to match the others.”

“Oh! he doesn’t take up much room, he’s so little,” reassured idle Molly, with a mischievous glance toward the doorway which the other girls did not observe; while by dint of considerable assistance Alfy “got him down” and “all on one line!” as she triumphantly remarked.

“That’s two boys and three girls. Who’s your next boy?”

“Melvin Cook. He’s easy to write,” said Dolly.

“But he’s gone.”

“Yes, Alfy, but he can come back. They’ll all have to ‘come’ except we who don’t have to.”

A giggle from behind the portières commented upon this remark and speeding to part them Dolly revealed the hiding figures of their two boy house-mates.

“That’s not nice of young gentlemen, to peep and listen,” remarked Molly, severely; “but since you’ve done it, come and take your punishment. You’ll have to help. James Barlow, you are appointed the committee of ‘ways and means.’ I haven’t an idea what that ‘means,’ but I know they always have such a committee.”

“What ‘they,’ Miss Molly?”

“I don’t know, Mister Barlow, but you’re – it.”

“Monty, you’ll furnish the entertainment,” she continued.

The recipient of this honor bowed profoundly, then lifted his head with a sudden interest as Dorothy suggested the next name:

“Molly Martin.”

Even Alfy looked up in surprise. “Do you mean it, Dorothy C.?”

“Surely. After her put Jane Potter.”

James was listening now and inquired:

“What you raking up old times for, Dorothy? Inviting them south-siders that made such a lot of trouble when you lived ‘up-mounting’ afore your folks leased their farm?”

“Whose ‘Party’ is this?” asked the young hostess, calmly, yet with a twinkle in her eye.

“All of our’n,” answered Alfaretta, complacently.

“How many girls now, Alfy?” questioned Molly, who longed to suggest some of her schoolmates but didn’t like a similar reproof to that which fell so harmlessly from Alfaretta’s mind.

“Five,” said the secretary, counting upon her fingers. “Me, and you, and her, and – five. Correct.”

“Mabel Bruce.”

“Who’s she? I never heard of her,” wondered Molly, while Jim answered:

“She’s a girl ’way down in Baltimore. Why, Dorothy C., you know she can’t come here!”

“Why not? Listen, all of you. This is to be my House Party. It’s to be the very nicest ever was. One that everyone who is in it will never, never forget. My darling Aunt Betty gave me permission to ask anybody I chose and to do anything I wanted. She said I had learned some of the lessons of poverty and now I had to begin the harder ones of having more money than most girls have. She said that I mustn’t feel badly if the money brought me enemies and some folks got envious.”

Here, all unseen by the speaker, honest Alfaretta winced and put her hand to her face; but she quickly dropped it, to listen more closely.

“Mabel was a dear friend even when I was that ‘squalling baby’ Alfy wrote about. I am to telegraph for her and to send her a telegraphic order for her expenses, though Aunt Betty wasn’t sure that would be acceptable to Mr. and Mrs. Bruce. To prevent any misunderstanding on that point, you are to make the telegram real long and explicit. I reckon that’s what it means to be that committee Molly named. She’ll make six girls and that’s enough. Six boys – how many yet Alfy?”

“Three. Them two that are and the one that isn’t.”

“Mike Martin.”

Both Jim and Alfy exclaimed in mutual protest:

“Why Dorothy! That fellow? you must be crazy.”

“No, indeed! I’m the sanest one here. That boy is doing the noblest work anybody ever did on this dear old mountain; he’s making and keeping the peace between south-side and north-side.”

“How do you know, Dorothy?” asked Jim, seriously.

“No matter how I know but I do know. Why, I wouldn’t leave him out of my Party for anything. I’d almost rather be out of it myself!”

Then both he and Alfaretta remembered that winter day on the mountain when Dorothy had been the means of saving Mike Martin from an accidental death and the quiet conference afterward of the two, in that inner room of the old forge under the Great Balm Tree. Probably something had happened then and there to make Dolly so sure of Mike’s worthiness. But she was already passing on to “next,” nodding toward Alfy, with the words:

“The two Smith boys, Littlejohn and Danny.”

Jim Barlow laughed but did not object. The sons of farmer Smith were jolly lads and deserved a good time, once in their hard-worked lives; yet he did stare when Dorothy concluded her list of lads with the name:

“Frazer Moore.”

“You don’t know him very well, Dolly girl. Beside that, he’ll make an odd number. He’s the seventh – ”

“Son of the seventh son – fact!” interrupted Alfaretta; “and now we’ll have to find another girl to match him.”

“I’ve found the girl, Dolly, but she won’t match. Helena Montaigne came up on the train by which your Father John left for the north. You could hardly leave her out from your House Party, or from givin’ her the bid to it, any way.”

“Helena home? Oh! I am so glad, I am so glad! Of course, she’ll get the ‘bid’; I’ll take it to her myself the first thing to-morrow morning. But you didn’t mention Herbert. Hasn’t he come, too?”

James Barlow nodded assent but grudgingly. He had never in his heart quite forgiven Herbert Montaigne for their difference in life; as if it were the fault of the one that he had been born the son of the wealthy owner of The Towers and of the other that he was a penniless almshouse child. Second thoughts, however, always brought nobler feeling into the honest heart of Jim and a flush of shame rose to his face as he forced himself to answer.

“Yes, course. The hull fambly’s here.”

Dorothy checked the teasing words which rose to her lips, for when ambitious Jim relapsed so hopelessly into incorrect speech it was a sign that he was deeply moved; and it was a relief to see Alfaretta once more diligently count upon her fingers and to hear her declare:

“We’ll never’ll get this here list straight and even, never in this endurin’ world. First there’s a girl too many and now there’s a girl too short!”

“Never mind; we’ll make them come out even some way, and I’ll find another girl. I don’t know who, yet, and we mustn’t ask any more or there’ll be no places for them to sleep. Now we’ve settled the guests let’s settle the time. We’ll have to put it off two or three days, to let them get here. I wish your cousin Tom Hungerford could be asked to join us but I don’t suppose he could come,” said Dolly to her friend Molly.

“No, he couldn’t. It was the greatest favor his getting off just for those few hours. A boy might as well be in prison as at West Point!”

“What? At that ‘heavenly’ place? Let’s see. This is Wednesday night. Saturday would be a nice time to begin the Party, don’t you all think?”

“Fine. Week-end ones always do begin on Saturday but the trouble is they break up on Monday after;” answered Molly.

“Then ours is to be a double week-ender. Aunt Betty said ‘invite them for a week.’ That’s seven days, and now Master Stark comes your task. As a committee of entertainment you are to provide some new, some different, fun for us every single one of those seven days; and it must be something out of the common. I long, I just long to have my home-finding House Party so perfectly beautiful that nobody in it will ever, ever forget it!”

Looking into her glowing face the few who were gathered about her inwardly echoed her wish, and each, in his or her own way, resolved to aid in making it as “perfect” as their young hostess desired.

Monty heaved a prodigious sigh.

“You’ve given me the biggest task, Dolly Doodles! When a fellow’s brain is no better than mine – ”

“Nonsense, Montmorency Vavasour-Stark! You know in your little insides that you’re ‘’nigh tickled to death’ as Alfy would say. Aren’t you the one who always plans the entertainments – the social ones – at your school, Brentnor Hall? You’re as proud as Punch this minute, and you know it, sir. Don’t pretend otherwise!” reproved Molly, severely.

“Yes, but – that was different. I had money then. I hadn’t announced my decision to be independent of my father and he – he hadn’t taken me too literally at my word;” and with a whimsical expression the lad emptied his pockets of the small sums they contained and spread the amount on the table. “There it is, all of it, Lady of the Manor, at your service! Getting up entertainments is a costly thing, but – as far as it goes, I’ll try my level best!”

They all laughed and Dorothy merrily heaped the coins again before him.

“You forget, and so I have to remind you, that this is to be my Party! I don’t ask you to spend your money but just your brains in this affair.”

“Huh! Dorothy! I’m afraid they won’t go much further than the cash!” he returned, but nobody paid attention to this remark, they were so closely watching Dorothy. She had opened a little leather bag which lay upon the table and now drew from it a roll of bills. Crisp bank notes, ten of them, and each of value ten dollars.

“Whew! Where did you get all that, Dorothy Calvert?” demanded Jim Barlow, almost sternly. To him the money seemed a fortune, and that his old companion of the truck-farm must still be as poor in purse as he.

She was nearly as grave as he, as she spread the notes out one by one in the place where Monty had displayed his meager sum.

“My Great-Aunt Betty gave them to me. It is her wish that I should use this money for the pleasure of my friends. She says that it is a first portion of my own personal inheritance, and that if I need more – ”

“More!” they fairly gasped; for ten times ten is a hundred, and a hundred dollars – Ah! What might not be done with a whole one hundred dollars?

“’Twould be wicked,” began James, in an awestruck tone, but was not allowed to finish, for practical Alfaretta, her big eyes fairly glittering, was rapidly counting upon her fingers and trying to do that rather difficult “example” of “how many times will seven go into one hundred and how much over?” “Seven into ten, once and three; seven into thirty – Ouch!”

Her computation came to a sudden end. The storm had broken, all unnoticed till then, and a mighty crash as if the whole house were falling sent them startled to their feet.