“Mother never liked nicknames,” she said shyly. “I would rather you called me Margaret.”
“Oh, very well,” said her aunt, “but I fancy you’ll find the young mob changing it pretty soon.”
That was the beginning.
Aunt Carlotta took her to her own room, arrayed herself in a charming negligee, and then said, from the vantage point of her chaise lounge, “Well now, little girl, I think we’d better get at your wardrobe first. Just what do you need? Tell me all about it.”
“Need?” said Margaret, wide-eyed. “Why, I don’t think I need anything, thank you. I bought my winter’s outfit just before I came away. I think I have everything that I shall have any use for this winter.”
“But, my dear, you wouldn’t be supposed to know just what you need out here. This is a different land, you know, from the small suburban place where you have been attending school for the last two years.”
Margaret gave her aunt an astonished look.
“Isn’t life about the same everywhere?” she asked gently.
“No, indeed it isn’t. And I really don’t think a girl of your age would have the experience to select wisely the most useful and becoming and the smartest things for a winter here. Besides, little country towns don’t ordinarily have very smart goods on display, and of course the customer has to take what they have.”
“Oh, Aunt Carlotta, I didn’t get my wardrobe in a village. I went to New York to the regular places where Mother used to get them. They were quite smart shops, what they call ‘exclusive places.’ Mother had a friend who owned one of those places. She has two such shops now, on Fifth Avenue, and she advised me what to get. She knew what we liked, and she used sometimes to find something abroad with me in mind. She always gave us the benefit of low prices, besides.”
Aunt Carlotta opened her eyes wide now, although there was still an incredulous look in them.
“Really? Why, that is quite extraordinary. Suppose you run and get a few of these garments and let me see if I agree with you in your ideas of what is smart.”
Margaret gave her a steady look that had dignity as well in it, and went out of the room. Presently she returned with a few really lovely garments over her arm.
The cold eyes of the aunt surveyed them. She shook them out one by one, examined the material, the cut, the finish.
“Well, they’re not bad,” she admitted after a moment. “Awfully conservative, of course, but not half bad. What else have you?”
Margaret was trying to smother the anger that she felt rising in her young breast, and she managed to control her voice as she said quietly, “Would you like to come into my room and look my things over?” She was trying with all her might to keep resentment out of her voice.
“Why, yes, that might not be a bad idea,” her aunt said. “Those three dresses you brought are a good start, but you’ll need a lot of other things if you are going to keep up with the other girls here.”
“Oh, do I have to?” asked the girl.
“Well, yes, of course you have to, if you want to get on, and be a success.”
“What do you mean, a success, Aunt Carlotta? I’m not sure I want to try to be a success.”
“But you do, of course. That’s why I sent for you to come out here. I felt that it was my duty to make you a success. Socially, you know. You’ve got to be popular and have loads of invitations and a good time, and then in the end you’ll be a success. You’ll make a brilliant marriage!”
“Oh!” said Margaret aghast, in a tone that was almost like a moan. “But why should I make a brilliant marriage? I don’t think I would want to make a brilliant marriage. It doesn’t sound like a happy thing, a brilliant marriage.”
“Nonsense!” said her aunt sharply. “Of course it is a happy thing. A brilliant marriage means that you will have plenty of money and an adoring husband, and can go anywhere and do anything you please. Live on the top of the world, you know. Buy anything that you like and have the entrée simply everywhere! Of course you want to make a brilliant marriage.”
“But all those things would not make up for a lack of love,” said Margaret thoughtfully.
“What nonsense! Why shouldn’t you have love, too, you romantic little idiot? Of course you’ll have love. You are beautiful, and if you just know how to take care of your beauty and enhance it, you’ll have all the love you want. That’s what makes men fall in love with girls, beauty. And dress has a lot to do with your appearance.”
The aunt had thrown open the closet door and was looking at Margaret’s wardrobe, taking out a dress now and then on its hanger, surveying it and then hanging it back, realizing that Margaret’s selections were not only lovely but surprisingly sophisticated.
“But you haven’t any slacks or shorts or pajama suits, and simply everybody is wearing those now. You won’t be in it at all without them. We’ll have to attend to that at once.”
“No, please, Aunt Carlotta. I don’t like those things and wouldn’t want to wear them.”
“But that’s ridiculous!”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” said Margaret, lifting her chin with a grave look in her eyes, “but I really wouldn’t care to wear them.” She took her dresses and hung them in their places. “Of course, if there is any place you wish me to go for which I do not seem to you to be suitably dressed, I can always stay at home.”
She said it very quietly, but her aunt, giving a swift glance at her face, was reminded of the gentle firmness of Margaret’s mother. She was still for a minute, shutting her own thin lips and flashing her dark eyes. Then she said with a disagreeable little laugh, “Oh, well, if you want to be stubborn, of course, there is always that refuge. But I fancy after a little you will learn to do as others are doing.”
Silently, Margaret hung away the last dress and closed the closet door.
“And now,” said her aunt, glancing at her watch, “I think it would be a good idea for us to run down to the beauty parlor. I had a tentative appointment for you this afternoon, and there is plenty of time before people begin to run in for teatime. I want Madame to look you over and see just what needs to be done to you.”
Margaret had a sudden frenzy of anger rise in her, but she took a deep breath and was silent as her aunt went on.
“There will be your hair and your nails of course, and you’ll need a facial, before Madame selects the type of powder and rouge for you.”
Margaret was standing by the window now, looking off at the great mountains in the distance and the bright sea spread out on the other hand, trying to gather strength from them before she answered. Then she turned, struggling with the smarting of tears behind her lashes, and smiled sorrowfully at her aunt.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Carlotta, that I’m going to be such a disappointment to you, but I really would rather not go. Those are some more things I would rather not do. I don’t like long red nails the way a lot of girls have them, and I don’t want to be all made up. I know you think I’m a strange little country girl who doesn’t know what the world’s people think, but I don’t want to be like the world, and I can’t. If that disappoints you so that you do not want me to stay here with you this winter, I can go back to where I was living. I was very happy there, and they liked me the way I was. I came out here to you because you were my mother’s sister, and I thought you would be like her. But she would never want me to do these things. And I want to go on being as my mother taught me!”
“But your mother is not on earth now, my dear, and her ideas were far behind the times!”
Margaret was almost in tears now, and her aunt saw that she was not getting on very fast in her attempt to bring about a fashionable change in this sweet, natural girl. Suddenly Margaret put her face down in her hands and let the tears come for a minute.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” exclaimed the annoyed aunt. “Don’t be a crybaby. If it’s so much to you as all that, go on and be old-fashioned. Only, if you knew what an impression you are making, I’m sure you would
change. Especially when one of the best prospects we have in this part of the country is interested in you. I don’t suppose you are really mature enough to realize what that means, but I do, and it’s more than I could have hoped that you would make a hit with him the first time he saw you.”
“What do you mean?” Margaret lifted her tearstained face and looked in wonder at her aunt.
“Well, I mean Bailey Wicke, if you must know in plain English before you will understand. Don’t you know that he is worth millions in his own right, and he’ll be of age and come into full ownership within a year and a half?”
Margaret looked at her aunt with a puzzled frown.
“Honestly, Aunt Carlotta, I don’t understand what you mean. What has being worth millions got to do with it?”
“Now don’t be so naive. You can’t possibly be as dumb as that. Does it mean nothing to you that a boy who is rich as Croesus is crazy about you, and you could have him just as easy as turning your hand over?”
“Have him? Oh, Aunt Carlotta. How dreadful! You don’t really mean that you want me to dress up and try to attract somebody to marry me, now, when I’m nothing but a little girl! Oh, please don’t talk like that. It seems awful to me. I am not thinking of marrying anybody yet, and if I were, I certainly wouldn’t pick him out!”
“You wouldn’t? Why, you crazy child! He’s handsome as a picture, and every girl in this part of the world is just wild about him. What can you mean? Don’t you think he is stunning looking?”
“Why, I suppose he might be called sort of good looking, but I don’t like a ‘pretty’ boy, do you? He looks like a sissy! No, I don’t admire that kind of looks in a man. I like him to look as if he had some character and did something in the world besides just play around!”
“But he doesn’t need to do anything, child. He has enough without it. And think what it would be to be his wife, with all the money you wanted!”
“No, please, I don’t want to think of that. I never could love a man for a reason like that. I couldn’t! And marriage without love would be terrible. It would be a sin!”
“Oh, heavens and earth!” said the aunt, springing to her feet. “You are hopeless! You are the most fantastic piece of fanaticism I ever saw. It is just useless to try to do anything for you if you start out with such abnormal prejudices. You are trying to pattern yourself on what you imagine your mother was like, and you don’t seem to know that even when she lived she was considered old-fashioned. You forget entirely that she is dead and the times are changed. You have simply got to live up to the times, or you will never get anywhere! Don’t you know that?”
Margaret was having a hard time controlling the tears again. She felt it was cruel of her aunt to speak that way of her mother, but she knew it was useless to argue about it. They simply didn’t think alike, that was all. But she was hurt, terribly hurt! It made her feel that her life was worse than useless. Then suddenly she looked up with one of her almost blinding smiles that shone through her tears like a ray of glory, like the sun bursting through black clouds after a storm.
“I think,” she said very softly, very tenderly, “that I might get to heaven, even if I am all those things you say!” And there was such a look of sweetness and humility in her eyes that her aunt, with a suddenly strange reaction, put out impulsive arms and, drawing her close, kissed her on her sweet lips and on her wet eyes.
“Oh, you quaint funny little thing!” she said, a kind of compunction in her voice. “Well, go on! Try it out, and you’ll see. You may get to heaven with those ideas, but you’ll have a mighty slow going on this earth. And it’s on this earth we have to live, now anyway. You can’t just walk into heaven when you want to.”
“No,” said the girl wistfully, and sighed.
Chapter 11
Grandfather Revel was getting better. There was no question about that. Revel saw it himself in the little gleams here and there, in the look of the tired old eyes, the curve of the wrinkles about the kindly old lips when he smiled, the gradual steadying of the trembling hands. He caught the assurance of it from the light in the nurse’s eyes as she administered the morning medicine and brought a more generous breakfast to tempt the fluctuating appetite. He saw it in the doctor’s face, even read it in the sound of his step as he came into the room with more and more confidence. He read it in the sound of his grandfather’s voice.
And then one morning, after a thorough examination of the patient, the doctor told him in so many words.
“Well, my boy, your Grand is getting well. He’s going to get up again and go about with you. And I lay his cure to you. If you hadn’t come when he called for you, I am sure he would have been gone long before this. He needed you!”
“Yes, sir!” said Revel with a clear ring to his voice, “and I needed him! You don’t know, but I did! Someday perhaps I’ll tell you both about it all.”
So there was great joy in the dear old farmhouse by the roadside, joy that walked softly and did not take advantage because of what it had been through. Joy that grew day by day more sweet and precious, as the two who had been separated so long grew into a closer and closer fellowship, youth and age together under a shining glory that was life to both their souls.
The doctor was coming less and less often now, sometimes staying away for several days at a time, and the nurse was only staying by courtesy to “get a bit of rest” and keep her eye on the two to be sure her patient didn’t overdo.
And then one day in middle of summer, when the old man was feeling stronger and said he’d like to go out and plant a field or something, they began to talk.
“Suppose you tell me a little more about things, boy,” said the old man. “You came here under what conditions at home?”
“Well,” said Revel thoughtfully, “my dad had just told me he was getting married again, and I saw red. I had to go somewhere, and if you hadn’t sent for me, I don’t know what I would have done. I’m sure I wouldn’t have stayed at home, anyway.”
“Yes?” said the old man after a long pause. “That was to have been expected, though, in the natural order of things. Were you sure you were right to come away?”
“Absolutely.”
Another pause. Then, “What effect did your action have at home?”
“Well, you see, I left while he was away. When he got home he found my note, and he was very angry and ordered me home. I said I couldn’t leave you then. He threatened to disinherit me, and he wouldn’t support me, nor pay for my education if I didn’t come at once. You were so sick then, I couldn’t even take time to think about that, so after a few days I wrote and told him to talk to the lady he was marrying about that and ask her if it wasn’t better for me to stay away.”
“Yes?” There was the semblance of a grin about the old lips then. “And what was his answer to that?”
“A wedding announcement! And yesterday an order to go to the college he has selected for me to attend and to make arrangements at once about taking entrance examinations.”
“You didn’t do it?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t mean to go to that college. I never did want to. I’ll tell you my reasons later. It’s a long story. But I thought perhaps pretty soon you would be able to let me talk it over with you. I would like to go to some college close by if I can get in. Is the one my mother attended possible?”
A light grew in the old eyes as he nodded emphatically.
“Grand, I thought perhaps there would be a way I could work my way there!” went on the boy. “I’d rather do that than have my father pay for something he doesn’t like. In fact, he wouldn’t, of course. He would put his foot down good and hard and command that I should obey him.”
“What would your father say to your going to our college?” asked the old man after a minute of thoughtfulness.
“Oh, he wouldn’t like it. But I’m not sure he would stop me. He’s a great one for saving, and perhaps he would think it would make me i
ndependent. But my strongest bet is the lady. I don’t think she wants me around, any more than I want to be near her, and naturally she’d be willing to save their money and not spend it on me.”
The old grin deepened again.
“You have anything to prove that theory, Revel? Or is that just a clever hunch?”
“I don’t know about the cleverness, but I guess it’s all hunch. I haven’t any clippin’s to prove it.”
“Well, that’s a clever guess,” said the old man.
There was silence for quite a few minutes while the two sat thoughtfully staring into the summer day, and then the old man spoke.
“Revel, my boy, when you were born, I thought the matter over carefully, and finally I entered your name in that college you speak of, the college that is over beyond Linwood here. I knew it was a good, sound college scholastically and that it had a firm Christian faith behind it. I always felt that it was a healthier atmosphere in which to study and to form a young mind, than a great big overgrown institution where there were so many students that the scholar never had personal contacts with his teachers. So on that I made my decision. Of course, I knew your father was a man of very strong will and that he would not be likely to make any of his decisions to please me or because of my advice. In fact, I was sure the very opposite was true. And it was altogether likely that my plans would never be possible to carry out. But I knew that time brings changes, and there are always possibilities. So I began to pray for you, boy, that you might be led in the right way. Also, I began to put by, year by year, a little money into the bank, stipulating that it was for your college expenses should you be allowed to come to this college, or should other need arise for you to use it. I have taken great pleasure in accumulating that money. I saved it a little at a time when things with me were going hard, and always I felt that somehow it might be made to benefit you. The money is there in the bank now, Revel, and if you want to use it, or are permitted to use it, I shall be very glad. It is not a great sum. There will be more, not a large fortune, but more to give you when you are of age, and some more when I am gone. You will not be wealthy, but you will not suffer. But the college money is yours now, my boy, if you will accept it. It would give me great joy to have you here, near me, during my remaining days of course, but you must not be guided by my wishes. You must do what you think is the right thing to do. And of course till you are of age, what you are allowed to do.”
The Girl of the Woods Page 11