Chance of a Lifetime

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “What? This?” asked Sherrill, following the direction of the glance that came from between the hot towels. “Oh no, this is mine. It is pretty, isn’t it?”

  “But it looks like an important thing,” said the aunt in her superior tone. “Where on earth could you have got it?”

  “Yes,” said Sherrill, “it came from Paris. A friend of Mother’s brought it to me a few days ago.”

  “You don’t say!” said the aunt thoughtfully. “A friend of your mothers. I didn’t suppose she had friends who traveled abroad.”

  Sherrill’s color rose, and she drew a deep breath. This was the thing to expect from Aunt Eloise, of course, but it was very maddening. She must be careful.

  She gathered the lovely folds about her and said nothing.

  “Well, we’d better get to work. There isn’t much time, especially if the dress has to be altered. Take off your negligee, and anything you have under. This dress has garments that go especially with it. You can go behind that screen; Maida will dress you.”

  Sherrill stood hesitantly, eyeing the maid, over whose arm was slung billows of bright green silk and Malines silk, and then looking toward the swathed face on the pillow.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary, Aunt Eloise,” she said, with a smile as sweet as if she were really grateful. “It is very kind of you, of course, but I have plenty of clothes with me.”

  The woman on the bed waved an impatient hand.

  “Don’t argue!” she said sharply. “I haven’t time to discuss the matter. I want that dress tried on at once. Afterward we’ll discuss it if there is time. Don’t begin to annoy me right at the start. It’s most annoying to have young people always objecting to things. Marie, this pack is getting cold. You’d better change it.”

  “Oh, very well.” And Sherrill followed the maid behind the screen. She saw at once when she threw back her robe that her pretty lingerie commanded a respect of the woman. Nevertheless, she handed forth a tiny garment that she demanded should be substituted for the things Sherrill wore.

  “Can’t I try on the dress over these?” asked Sherrill.

  “You heard Madam say the under things went with the dress,” said the maid coldly.

  So, much against her will, Sherrill put on the flimsy substitute, and when the maid flung the green dress over her head and she saw herself in the long pier mirror, it became immediately apparent to her why her own undergarments would not do, for her own white back gleamed at her from the mirror, free of covering.

  Sherrill surveyed herself in dismay, saying nothing at first, simply marveling at the idea that any girl would be willing to go out into company so nearly naked as she looked to herself.

  Also, her sense of humor, which was strong, rose and battered at her self-control. She wanted to laugh at herself in such array. She could not help picturing her mother’s and her grandmother’s faces if they could see her now. A bare back to the waist, with a long green tail of fluffy Malines and silk, and a front that was all too revealing for her sense of fineness. And what would the girls and boys of Rockland say if she should appear in a garment like this?

  But while she was studying herself, trying to think what to say and how, gracefully, to decline the use of this most unsuitable dress, the maid moved a leaf of the screen back, and she stood revealed before her aunt.

  “It couldn’t have fit better if it were made for her, Madam,” said the maid. “It’s just her size. There’ll not need to be a thing done to it.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” said the aunt, suddenly emerging from the towels and showing a steamed complexion, almost like a baby’s. “Put on a wrap and let her see how it’s to be worn, and then she’ll be fixed.”

  Before Sherrill could object, Maida threw about her shoulders a long black wrap with a high fur collar.

  “Stunning!” said the aunt, submitting to vigorous applications of ice wrapped in cheesecloth bags over her cheeks and chin and forehead and nose. “That’s that! Sherrill, you better go right downstairs and sit in the library to wait for us. Your uncle hates to be kept waiting, and it’s a relief to know you’re ready early enough. I shan’t be long. Thank fortune you have naturally good hair, and you seem to have arranged it becomingly. Slightly ingénue, but I guess it will have to do tonight because I simply can’t spare Marie now, and Maida will have to go down and dress Carol. Just go right down now. Those silver shoes look very well with the green. Are they the ones that came with the dress, Maida? Oh, her own? Well, they’re not so bad. Maida, you show her how to find the library. I’ll tell you on the way how to behave at the dinner, Sherrill. That’s all for now. I haven’t another minute.”

  “But Aunt Eloise,” began Sherrill in dismay, “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I really would prefer to wear my own dress. I’m sure Mother would not like—”

  “It makes no difference what your mother would like,” cut short the aunt. “She isn’t here, and she wouldn’t know what was proper if she were. You are under my care and advisement now, and you are in my house. I expect you to be properly dressed when you go out with me or any of my family. Understand? Now go!”

  Mrs. Washburn arose haughtily from her elegant couch and stepped into the silken garment that the maid held out for her; Sherrill realized that she was dismissed.

  In growing dismay she found herself following the maid down the hall. At the end of the stairs, the maid paused coldly and said, “You will find the library to the left of the stairs. You can’t miss it. I will put Mademoiselle’s garments in her room.”

  Sherrill hesitated at the head of the stairs, looking after the woman as she disappeared into a door farther down the hall, then slowly walked down the stairs, trying to think what to do.

  She heard the woman come out of her room a moment later and close the door to go down the back stairs. Instantly she turned and fled back up to her room, the green taffeta making an alarming rustle as she tried to go silently.

  Once in her room she locked the door and went to the mirror. The girl who looked back at her over the fur collar seemed an alien somehow. The wrap, of course, was pretty, but far too rich and ornate for her idea of the way a young girl should be dressed. But the long, green, freakish tails hanging below filled her with distaste. With a quick motion she flung off the wrap and laid it on the chair beside her, and took another quick survey of herself, not omitting her bare, pink back. Then swiftly she began to disrobe, casting aside the borrowed garments and getting into her own, which Maida had left neatly folded on a chair.

  Her own blue taffeta was lying on the bed where she had left it, and she put it on, thankful that its adjustment was the work of but a moment. She unfastened the gaudy costume jewelry that had been on her neck, and slid out of the bracelets, clasping on her own string of pearls that Alan had given her. Then she was ready, and her own eyes told her that she looked a great deal more becomingly garbed than in the borrowed clothes. But then, of course, it might make her aunt very angry. Still, she could not help that. She could not go out anywhere with her back exposed that way. Her whole family would have utterly disapproved, and upheld her in her course she knew, and her own soul loathed the idea of the other dress. She had not been brought up to feel comfortable in questionable clothes. Of course, these things were worn constantly in the world, she knew, and probably nobody else would even realize why she disliked them. But not even for peace and courtesy could she bring herself to go out among people dressed as her aunt had commanded.

  She paused hesitantly and looked at the rich wrap lying on the bed. Should she put that on instead of her own coat, so that they would not discover what she had done until it was too late to make a fuss about it? Perhaps they would insist on waiting for her to go back and change into the green after all!

  Well, let them. Then she could remain at home perhaps. But even if it did make a coldness between herself and her aunt, she felt she should take a stand at once about wearing her own clothes.

  So she left the velvet wrap lying on the
bed where she had flung it and got her own fur coat from the closet. If her beautiful squirrel coat was not good enough to go to anything, then she would stay home. Aunt Harriet had told her that it was perfectly proper, and if Harriet Masters didn’t know then nobody did.

  So without more fuss, Sherrill put on her fur coat, got out her lovely blue chiffon scarf that came straight from Paris, and was ready. The whole performance of changing had not taken her ten minutes, and she felt sure that none of the family had gone downstairs as yet.

  With her hand on the doorknob she paused, and quickly dropped to her knees. “Dear Father, help me through this hard place, and keep me and guide me every moment this evening, for Jesus’ sake”—she breathed and then went quickly downstairs to the library and sat down in a shadowed corner where she would not be much noticed if anyone came into the room, for there was only a single heavily shaded lamp burning. She was glad to sit back and close her eyes and just rest. She was more tired than she had realized, and she dreaded the evening inexpressibly. At that moment, if anyone had offered her quick transport back to Rockland, she would have accepted it eagerly.

  She had a full half hour to sit in the big leather chair and wait, and time to calm her heart and think over what she had done. It began to look to her as if her stay in New York was going to be a stormy one, unless she was able right at the start to take a stand. Yet she found herself trembling in anticipation. Oh, why had she come?

  At last she heard doors opening upstairs. A man’s voice, which she thought she recognized as her uncle’s; her aunt’s cold, thin tones answering; and then another door hastily flung back, and a girl’s high, petulant tones. That must be her cousin!

  Simultaneously Maida appeared in the doorway and peered into the elegant gloom of the room.

  “Madam says you are to go right out to the car and get in, Miss Washburn,” she announced. “They are late already.” And turning, she disappeared.

  Chapter 15

  Sherrill went into the hall and found her uncle just coming down the stairs.

  “Uncle West!” she called joyously and hurried to meet him. Here at last she might be natural. Uncle West had always been nice—whenever he had had time.

  He stopped, and a light came into his eyes.

  “Ho, ho! Little girl, so you’ve come! They didn’t tell me! Well I’m glad to see you. I hope we’re going to have a beautiful winter together. It’s going to be nice to have two little girls instead of one.” And he took her in his arms and kissed her warmly.

  “Now, come on right out to the car,” he added. “Your aunt will be down in a minute. She found a button off her shoe or something that had to be remedied I believe, but she said we were to get in. Carol? Where are you, child? Carol is always the last one. Well, come on, you and I will go out and get settled.”

  He led her out to the car and seated her comfortably, and Sherrill suddenly felt warm around her heart again. It wasn’t going to be so bad perhaps, after all, if there was one friend in the family.

  Mrs. Washburn came almost at once, stopping at the door to give directions to the butler, and making a great fuss about getting settled in the car. Carol came trailing behind, fretting at having to go to dinner.

  “You know I can’t abide Amelia Van’s dinners, Eloise,” she drawled, without even glancing toward her newly arrived cousin. “Why you had to ring me in on this, I don’t see. If your Mrs. Pearly and her stupid daughter had to go to an old funeral, I don’t see why that should affect me. Amelia’s a pest anyway, and her dinners are never worth eating.”

  “Carol, that’s no way to speak of your hostess,” chided her father mildly. “Mrs. Van Gordon is one of your mother’s friends, and that should be enough for you.”

  “Well, it’s not enough!” retorted the girl impudently. “I don’t see being a slave to anybody, merely because Eloise is fool enough to accept her invitations. Here I have to go and be made a martyr when I might have been resting up a little for the dance this evening. I’ll be bored to extinction. She always seats me beside that doddering old Max Pyle, just because he likes to appear young. I can’t abide him, old cradle snatcher.”

  “Carol, you haven’t spoken to your cousin yet,” reproved her mother coldly, as if the subject of the dinner was finally closed.

  “Oh!” said Carol, turning an indifferent stare toward Sherrill and then pausing rudely to appraise her with a startled look of surprise.

  “Oh, hello!” she said indifferently. “But say, Eloise, you’ve certainly done her up in a stunning coat. I like that! What’s the idea! You wouldn’t get me a new fur coat this winter. What’s the idea! I’m certainly not going to stand for that!”

  “Fur coat?” said Mrs. Washburn, turning questioning eyes toward Sherrill’s corner, where the light from the top of the car shone full upon her. “What do you mean?” Then she stared. “Where on earth did you get that fur coat, Sherrill?” she demanded. “That’s not the wrap I gave you to wear.”

  “No,” said Sherrill, smiling and trying to speak naturally. “I thought it would be better to wear my own things, they seemed more suited to me. You see, in the others I felt a little like David in Saul’s army.”

  “David?” questioned Mrs. Washburn with raised eyebrows and a tone that implied something questionable in Sherrill’s acquaintances. “Who is David? And Saul? You seem to have a great many gentlemen friends. I hope they don’t live in New York.”

  Sherrill, with difficulty, controlled a wild burst of mirth. She tried to answer pleasantly with just a casual smile. “Oh, I mean David of the Bible, you know,” she explained.

  “The Bible!” exclaimed her aunt caustically. “I’ve always considered it irreverent to bring the Bible into daily conversation in such a trivial way. I’m surprised. I always heard your family was very religious. But who was this other man you mentioned, this Saul? You must excuse me, but all your acquaintances. I really couldn’t have ordinary persons coming to see you at the house, you know, on Carol’s account. And what could this person possibly have to do with your wearing my evening wrap?”

  Sherrill’s eyes danced, and she longed to make a sharp reply, but she answered demurely,

  “Oh, Saul was just a king,” she said, “and he offered to lend David his armor in which to fight the giant. David declined because he felt he wasn’t used to the armor, you know, and could do better without it.”

  “Well, I’m sure I think this David person was very rude!” said Aunt Eloise haughtily. “I wonder why they persist in putting such ridiculous stories in the Bible and then expect people to read them. But I’d rather not hear any more about it. Suppose you tell me how you happen to be wearing that elegant coat? I hope you didn’t borrow it for the trip.”

  Sherrill was suddenly so angry that she felt she would like to do something wild and primitive, like scratching out her aunt’s eyes or smacking her selfish little red mouth, but she drew a deep breath and caught her quick little tongue between her teeth till the impulse passed, and she managed to say steadily, although a trifle coldly, “The coat is my own, Aunt Eloise.”

  “Then I suppose you got a job and spent an entire year’s wages on it!” snapped the aunt contemptuously. “It’s a pity someone couldn’t go around teaching poor working girls a sense of values and the fitness of things. What is your job? Something in a bank, I think your mother wrote. It certainly can’t pay much. I suppose you bought it on the installment plan.”

  Here, Uncle Weston interfered. “Really, Eloise, don’t put the child through such a catechism on the first night she is here! Let’s talk of something pleasant. I’d like to know how the family are. We’ve scarcely had a chance to speak a word together yet. Perhaps she doesn’t care to tell all her family affairs.”

  “Well, Weston, since she is here I feel it is my duty to know all about her,” said the aunt virtuously.

  There was a dangerous sparkle in Sherrill’s eyes as she turned to her uncle and tried to speak pleasantly. “I have no objection to telling anything, U
ncle Weston,” she said. “I don’t suppose it would be of interest.” Then, turning back to her aunt, she said steadily, “No, I have no job as yet. I am just out of school, you know, but I was to have gone into the bank this month if I had stayed at home. And no, I didn’t borrow the coat from a neighbor, and I didn’t buy it myself. My brother bought it for me and gave it to me as a present, just before I came away.”

  “Your brother bought it for you? And where did he get the money?” This from the aunt in a tone as if she thought she had been deceived.

  “Why, I don’t think he stole it.” Sherrill smiled, a wicked little twinkle of fun dancing in her eyes. One thing that helped her was that she could always see the funny side of everything, and often took refuge in a laugh when she felt far more like crying.

  “Oh, does he steal?” asked Carol, with sudden languid interest and an impudent lift to the chin. “I never heard that he was dishonest.”

  “Carol! Really—you—”

  “There now, Daddy, don’t get tiresome. I’m sure she said she didn’t think he stole it. What else could I think but that he was in the habit of stealing!”

  “Carol, you are exceeding all bounds!” said her father angrily.

  But Sherrill suddenly broke into peals of laughter, which cleared the atmosphere in her own heart, at least. “Don’t scold her, Uncle Weston”—she laughed—”she’s only kidding. Of course she didn’t mean it. I’m not so touchy as all that!”

  But the aunt did not join in the laughter, and the cousin only stared.

  “I’m sure I’ve always been inclined to understand that your brother was very poor,” said the aunt rather indignantly. “Didn’t he at one time try to borrow something from you Weston, to pay a bill or something?”