That night Mary Curtis brought her lamp into Thankful’s room and sat down in the rocker. “There’s no reason I can see,” she announced to Thankful, half asleep, “why you shouldn’t look as well as the best.” Thankful woke up.
Her mother wasted no words. “Something is altogether wrong with those clothes. You’ll get yourself new ones.” She interrupted Thankful’s expostulation. “If it’s money you’re thinking of, you’ve enough. Gramp left you two years of schooling. You’ve need of but one.” She made an effort not to look proud. “I’ll see that you can put your hands on enough for clothes to suit you. The girls did what they could,” she apologized, rising, “but best get Selina to help you this time.” She unexpectedly bent over and kissed Thankful.
The morning was dank. A raw wind swept up the bay and blew clouds over the mountains. No day for Jonathan’s open boat and he knew it. Even Mary Curtis could not lighten the gloom of the early breakfast. “Got to get off, haven’t I?” he grumbled at her. “So’s to get back.”
Thankful felt like the morning. Not one glint of light anywhere. Except that Dave had said she could make it at Christmas. And even he had offered so that she could bring Selina. Well, she wouldn’t, but she’d come herself. The island crouched low and wet when she looked back at it, as if it didn’t care either. Selina moped. She had eaten too much of the Curtis Thanksgiving. Mary Curtis pulled her gray shawl up around her head and hurried back like a hooded bird to the warmth of her house. The powerboat chugged out around the point.
Selina hugged herself into her fur coat as close to the engine as she dared. Thankful hoped when she looked at her that there’d be no motion. Jonathan took an inside course. “Take longer but a dirty sea outside,” he grunted. Oh, Lord, thought Thankful, when there on the island was fun and work, and who cared about the weather! Selina was getting paler.
Off the mainland, riding at anchor, long and slim and black as a pirate ship, lay the government cutter. It was, moreover, signaling to them, and Jonathan Curtis attended to signals on the sea. He chugged up alongside.
“Take you up the coast if you like?” Dave, formal, business-like, beside an officer. Selina woke up. “Have to land for supplies this morning. Glad to take you along.”
Selina forgot her fear of boats and scrabbled up the ladder. Jonathan’s “Up you go!” was to a different tune. His relief swept Thankful aboard, too, with no regrets. Dave had saved her a bad morning.
The men paid little attention to them once they were aboard. They weren’t getting off for an hour, the mate explained, and make yourselves at home. He walked off. Selina gazed after him thoughtfully. Thankful found a sheltered corner and opened a book. When she next saw Selina, the officer was helping her up into the turret where no guests were allowed. Selina had cheered wonderfully. Dave was nowhere in sight.
On schedule the cutter made for open sea. It had none of Jonathan’s caution about shortcuts. Thankful’s excited eyes watched the swift race for the outer water, a swifter motion than she had ever known. She could hear Selina’s squeals of delight. Then the deep lift which Thankful loved, the swing up and the long slide down. Oh, if she could only have gone to sea with Gramp!
Selina’s squeals had ceased. Thankful turned her face from the sea to meet her staggering down the deck on Dave’s arm. He bent over her pityingly. “Better take her below,” he advised. “We’ll be only a short time out.”
Selina caught at his words. “How long,” she whispered, “how long?”
No one even smiled. “Before you know it.” Dave made you feel so protected. “Take it easy now, take it easy.”
Even for Selina, Thankful could not wish the short voyage done. She knew how Dave felt about his job. He had sea blood, too. The boat was to him what her island was to her. And if she had been a boy she would have taken the boat, too. She knew that now. But she would be quite content with her own little sailboat once she got back to the island. And now she would understand Dave better when he talked about his job. If he ever did. Well, just let him try talking about it to Selina! Thankful grinned at what would probably happen to him.
The cutter slipped silently up to the big dock and made fast. Selina could furnish only a blue smile for her officer. Yet even on that, he offered to telephone for the school bus. And settled them comfortably in the waiting room until it could come. Thankful shook her head in amazement at the girl!
Selina revived under the jar and shake of the bus which always made Thankful want to walk. Before they reached the school she had forgotten her downfall. Her words, her suitcase, herself, tumbled out at the feet of Robert who was mysteriously at the door when the bus stopped. Thankful listened as she hurried away and thought, If I hadn’t been there myself! How she does talk!
And she felt a fierce possessive anger toward Robert who had not cared to hear her account of what really happened. Yet when she was out of the sound of their voices, she could smile at what Robert must think about her home. Thankful felt uncertain about what a manor house was, but she was sure that a cutter wasn’t a steam yacht. “And the food!” She caught Selina’s ecstatic squeak. Well, no matter what she said about a Curtis Thanksgiving dinner, she could not be too prodigal. But Thankful was jealous for all the beauty of Bright Island which Selina did not know, and which should be hers to share with Robert. Perhaps someday! She instantly submerged such madness but a spark still stayed alive. It made her feel warm and comfortable.
The Business of Producing Cinderella
Selina considered herself appointed Mistress of the Wardrobe. Mary Curtis, it seemed, had talked the matter over with her. Selina now considered Thankful an heiress and was prepared to clothe her suitably. Thankful saw a certain amount of danger in the premise but she was indifferent about the results. She never had been interested in clothes, and her experience here had hardened indifference into dislike. Clothes were the symbol of her humiliation.
But Selina was prepared for resistance. “Don’t let her argle-bargle you into putting it off,” Mary Curtis had said, and while Selina wasn’t quite sure about what it was Thankful might do, she was ready for a prompt attack.
“I’ve asked permission for us to go to town next Saturday,” she announced on Monday.
Thankful looked pleased. “Movies?” she asked. “I’ve never seen any real ones.”
Selina was shocked but other business was more pressing. “Certainly not. We are going to buy you some decent clothes.”
The word could always cow Thankful. “What for?” she protested. “I’m used to these now. Maybe I even like them.”
“Like them! We leave here on the nine-thirty bus.” Selina was finished.
Thankful thought uneasily about ways to escape but none occurred to her. Anyway her mother had given her an envelope full of money and she might as well get rid of it. They left on the 9:30 bus.
It dropped them at the noisy railroad station which Thankful had not forgotten. She admired Selina’s assurance in buying tickets. “I’ve never been on a train before,” she said when they had settled into the green plush seat.
This time Selina hid her shock. “You sit next to the window then.” She spoke as if to a child and they exchanged seats.
Swifter even than the cutter, though without its grace and quiet, past little gray farms, startling grazing cows, stopping now and then with a grating and gritting which hurt Thankful’s teeth. She had no word for Selina. She sat, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes following, following.… “The movies must be like this,” she finally said.
“Like what?” Selina peered out puzzled. But she got no answer.
When her eyes were battered with too much seeing, she shut them, and still the motion went on. It ceased in the darkness of a huge train shed. Thankful followed Selina out of it into a taxi which reared and shuddered through crowds that miraculously stayed alive when it had passed.
“Of course this won’t be like shopping in New York.” Selina was excusing its size. That at least, thought Thankful, is something I�
�ll never have to do. “But there are good dress shops here and we’ll visit them all.”
The first one completely satisfied Thankful. “I’ll take that one, and that one,” but Selina covered her low voice with, “We’ll look a little farther. Just give me your card in case we come back.” Thankful was sorry for the woman’s disappointed face.
The next shop had a dress that surprisingly suited Selina. To Thankful it was too beautiful! Green blue with a coral belt. Thankful had seen the water at sunset with those colors. She nodded to Selina.
“All right, try it on,” Selina consented and the slinky voiced clerk ruffled it over her arm ready for Thankful.
“It’s all right anyhow.” Thankful was firm.
“You put that dress on before we buy it. Mustn’t she?” she appealed to the clerk.
The woman said, “Suttingly,” and Thankful pulled off her plaid wool. At least they gave her the protection of a small room which she hadn’t expected.
Mirrors, mirrors all around her, and in them she stood abashed, bare arms still golden with tan, pale fluff of hair, startled eyes. The woman ran experienced fingers down her slip. “No girdle?” She lifted eyebrows of astonishment.
“No girdle,” said Selina gloomily. She knew this was coming.
Thankful was watching a long pink cube sink stiffly through the water, down, down, to any mermaid that wanted it. “I had one,” she said, “but I gave it away.”
“Shouldn’t have done that.” The woman was obviously wedded to girdles. “But of course you aren’t the fat kind. We’ll try it.” She didn’t want to lose the sale.
The dress settled over Thankful’s shoulders and fell softly down around her. She watched herself in the mirror and bent forward to be sure it was true. Taller, curves new to her, eyes like the dress under their dark brows, hair a blown dandelion. She would like to have Robert see her like this. She turned to Selina who was looking at her with strange woman’s eyes, and to the clerk who said, “You need no girdle.” She bought the dress.
The success raised her spirits. She was more willing now to go on. Selina was wise in the adult ways of shopping. There must be a woolen dress and this and that. “Sit down,” she said, “and count your money.” It had dwindled. “Shoes now, and the right stockings,” she decided regretfully. Her heiress was falling short. “I’ll stand to the lunch,” she offered generously. But Thankful paid her share. Though she could have eaten more. All her muscles ached now as they had the day she arrived in weariness and terror. Better a shopping trip than that! she thought with warm recall of the blue green with the coral belt.
At the end she had a coat—she clung loyally to Dave’s hat—a dark jersey with scarlet edges, the coral-belted beauty, and shoes whose heels discouraged her. “You’ll get used to them,” Selina said. “Just practice balancing. You’re good in the gym.”
“I’ll only have to wear them evenings.” Thankful, sure-footed as a goat, rocked dizzily in imagination.
Selina made her wear the wool and the coat to save bundles. “They’ll mail your old things,” she said, and Thankful hoped they would be lost. She liked herself with the silvery fur under her silvery hair.
“Nothing more,” she announced. “Finished.”
“Sure you haven’t any more money? Let’s see that envelope.” Selina was suspicious. “It’s an hour before the train, and there’s plenty you need yet.”
Thankful opened the envelope. “You don’t get that.” She removed the last five dollar bill from Selina’s grasp. “I’ve two Christmas presents to buy. Where would I find handkerchiefs, and where would I find a pipe?”
“Ask a floor walker.” Selina sat on a bench and shut her eyes. She had spent every cent that she could get, and she was ready to rest.
Thankful wandered about a good deal because she wasn’t sure about floor walkers. She found Scotch thistles on handkerchiefs for her mother. The pipe was difficult. She saw nothing that resembled the one her father smoked. Would a little silver filigree be to his taste? She considered and the clerk said, “Take your time,” and took on a new customer.
“A carton of cigarettes,” he ordered.
Thankful whirled. “Mr. Fletcher!” she cried. “Oh, please tell me which pipe to buy.”
The man looked at her with polite unrecognizing eyes. Then the voice seemed to reach him. “Thankful Curtis!” He sounded awestruck. Then, “Have you gone over to smoking pipes?” But he still looked oddly at her.
“Would father like this one?” She held up the silver filigreed pipe.
“Certainly not.” That was settled. His long fingers hovered over a severe brown thing. Ugly, Thankful thought. She reassured his hesitation. “Three dollars,” and showed him the bills. He dropped the pipe.
The one he decided upon was much worse but Thankful saw no way of getting the silver filigree now. The clerk banded her too large a parcel. Mr. Fletcher rescued it confusedly. “Just a little of my brand of tobacco for him to try. You don’t mind?”
He walked beside her with the parcel. “Where now, Cinderella?”
Thankful found herself much pleased with all of her purchases. “Do you like my new clothes? Where do you suppose I left Selina?”
“Yes, I like them, though not as well as the jeans. Do we have to find Selina?”
Astonishing remark. What man hadn’t wanted to find Selina? How could he prefer faded overalls? She gave it up. “There she is looking for me. If we lose that four-ten!” She broke into a run.
They raced into Selina’s perturbed vision, and Thankful watched again that baffling alteration. Lucky he was with me, she thought. In a minute he and Selina were laughing together.
“What if,” he proposed, “we see Greta Garbo and take the next train?”
Oh, could they, could they? But no, of course they were signed up.
“I’ll telephone,” he said, and met with no opposition.
Selina was terribly excited and rushed Thankful off to the waiting room where she powdered and puffed endlessly. Thankful still felt a stranger to the girl who looked out of the mirror with pleased eyes. Cinderella, he had called her. But he liked the jeans better. She thought of the waves slapping over the boat, and felt the wet hard rope on her hands as they pulled together—we could get old Dinkle some chocolate, she thought, and found that she was including Orin Fletcher. “Ready,” called Selina, “we mustn’t keep him waiting.”
Down the dark aisle with music from nowhere stepping along with them and a strange little creature all legs and arms whirling dizzily on the screen. Then high letters, Anna Karenina, and silence. Thankful looked inquiringly at the dark saturnine face beside her, and he nodded. “The same,” he said, “but Garbo can do it.”
It was odd at first, outsize people talking in enormous tones, familiar words roaring in her ears. Then her eyes began to accept them on their own terms, her ears found overtones, the deep husky voice of Garbo had its way with her. She fought her emotion with island reticence. No one has any right to make me feel this way, she told herself, no one has the right. But Anna at last swept away her sense of herself and she traveled with her through the trackless waste of her suffering. When she ran in terror beside the train peering at the windows, Thankful lifted stricken eyes to the man beside her.
“Don’t take it so hard,” he comforted her. “It’s only a picture.”
It was not a picture to Thankful. It was a broken life. She could not bear it. And when at the end that distraught figure came searching for release under the grinding wheels, Thankful felt that she tasted death. She sat shaken, withdrawn. She could move no more than the dead.
Selina bustled for her coat. Under the glare of the lights she looked a little strained. She had hoped for Queen Christina’s love affair, and now the best thing to do was to forget it. Thankful made her uncomfortable. She leaned forward. “Come to! It’s all over!”
Mr. Fletcher moved between them and held Selina’s coat. When he finally had her settled, he turned from her and touched Thankful ge
ntly. “It seems bad now but you’ll be surprised how soon it will leave you. When you get outdoors,” he promised, and Thankful rose.
But it was not gone, even under the lights and life of the city. And in the train shed when the wheels ground to a stop in front of her, she looked at them with such white horror that Orin Fletcher slipped a hand under her arm. She leaned gratefully against him without knowing that he was there.
“The next time it will be Zasu Pitts for us,” he said shaken at what he had done to her. She did not hear him, nor would she have known what he meant if she had. But Selina laughed loudly. She only hoped there would be a next time.
The man turned a seat over and faced the girls. He drew the package from his pocket, and as if Thankful were a stricken child, sought to attract her attention. She looked at the little brown pipe, and suddenly the island was real to her again with her father smoking the new tobacco, and her mother examining the thistles. She showed him the handkerchiefs and he admired them. Selina felt out of it. “I shall do my Christmas shopping in Philadelphia,” she said and Mr. Fletcher didn’t seem to care.
At the door of the school he stood with bared head in the cold. “Think of the brown pipe tonight,” he said, “and don’t have bad dreams.”
Selina was tired and scornful. She had worked hard spending Thankful’s money, and she felt empty of reward. “You’ve certainly got a line,” she said. “I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”
Thankful was too exhausted to care what she meant. She thought about the little brown pipe and fell asleep.
But the sharp purity of that agonized face stayed on with her.
A Stranger on Bright Island
Again Bright Island crept up over the edge of Thankful’s horizon. It seemed to her that she counted off the almanac of her year by these uncertain appearances, like a beloved star which you could not depend upon to rise. She read the thermometer and the barometer for long minutes each morning, watching the sky, dreading the cold for the first time in her life. But even if it freezes, she thought, Dave promised to break them out. And after I’m once there the ocean may freeze to the bottom.
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