Cloudy Jewel & Aunt Crete's Emancipation. Grace Livingston Hill
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into the car? My, but I’d like to know him. I think Clarence Grandon is just a stuck-up prig.”
Her mother looked at her sharply.
“Luella, seems to me you change your mind a good deal. If I don’t make any mistake, you came down here so’s to be near him. What’s made you change your mind? He doesn’t seem to go with any other girls.”
“No, he just sticks by his mother every living minute,” sighed Luella unhappily. “I do wish I had that lavender organdie. I look better in that than anything else I’ve got. I declare I think Aunt Crete is real mean and selfish not to send it. I’m going in to see if the mail has come; and, if the organdie isn’t here, nor any word from Aunt Crete, I’m going to call her up on the telephone again.”
Luella vanished into the hotel office, and her mother sat and rocked with puckered brows. She very much desired a place in high society for Luella, but how to attain it was the problem. She had not been born for social climbing, and took hardly to it.
Meantime the motor-car rolled smoothly over the perfect roads, keeping always that wonderful gleaming sea in sight; and Aunt Crete, serenely happy, beamed and nodded to the pleasant chat of Mrs. Grandon, and was so overpowered by her surroundings that she forgot to be overpowered by the grand Mrs. Grandon. As in a dream she heard the kindly tone, and responded mechanically to the questions about her journey and the weather in the city, and how lovely the sea was to-night; but, as she spoke the few words with her lips, her soul was singing, and the words of its song were these:
“Must I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize
And sailed through bloody seas?”
And it seemed to her as they glided along the palace-lined shore, with the rolling sea on one hand, and the beautiful people in their beautiful raiment at ease and happy on the other hand, that she was picked right up out of the hot little brick house in the narrow street, and put on a wonderfully flowery bed of ease, and was floating right into a heaven of which her precious Donald was a bright, particular angel. She forgot all about Luella and what she might say, and just enjoyed herself.
She even found herself telling the elegant Mrs. Grandon exactly how she made piccalilli, and her heart warmed to the other woman as she saw that she was really interested. She had never supposed, from the way in which Luella spoke of the Grandons, that they would even deign to eat such a common thing as a pickle, let alone knowing anything about it. Aunt Crete’s decision was that Mrs. Grandon wasn’t stuck up in the least, but just a nice, common lady like any one; and, as she went up in the elevator beside her, and said good-night, she felt as if she had known her all her life.
It was not until she had turned out her light and crept into the great hotel bed that it came to her to wonder whether Luella and Carrie could be meant by the ones in the hymn,
“While others fought to win the prize
And sailed through bloody seas.”
She couldn’t help feeling that perhaps she had been selfish in enjoying her day so much when for aught she knew Luella might not be having a good time. For Luella not to have a good time meant blame for her aunt generally. Ever since Luella had been born it had been borne in upon Aunt Crete that there was a moral obligation upon her to make Luella have a good time. And now Aunt Crete was having a good time, the time of her life; and she hugged herself, she was so happy over it, and thought of the dear stars out there in the deep, dark blue of the arching sky, and the cool, dark roll of the white-tipped waves, and was thankful.
Luella and her mother had gloomily watched the dancing through the open windows of the ballroom; but, as they knew no one inside, they did not venture in. Luella kept one eye out for the return of the car, but somehow missed it, and finally retired to the solace of cold-cream and the comforts of the fourth floor back, where lingered in the atmosphere a reminder of the dinner past and a hint of the breakfast that was to come.
As the elevator ascended past the second floor, the door of one of the special apartments stood wide, revealing a glimpse of the handsome young stranger standing under the chandelier reading a letter, his face alive with pleasure. Luella sighed enviously, and in her dreams strove vainly to enter into the charmed circle where these favored beings moved, and knew not that of her own free will she had closed the door to that very special apartment, which might have been hers but for her own action.
The next morning Luella was twisting her neck in a vain endeavor to set the string of artificial puffs straight upon the enormous cushion of her hair, till they looked for all the world like a pan of rolls just out of the oven. She had jerked them off four separate times, and pulled the rest of her hair down twice in a vain attempt to get just the desired effect; and her patience, never very great at any time, was well-nigh exhausted. Her mother was fretting because the best pieces of fish and all the hot rolls would be gone before they got down to breakfast, and Luella was snapping back in most undaughterly fashion, when a noticeable tap came on the door. It was not the tap of the chambermaid of the fourth floor back, nor of the elevator boy, who knew how to modulate his knock for every grade of room from the second story, ocean front, up and back. It was a knock of rare condescension, mingled with a call to attention; and it warned these favored occupants of room 410 to sit up and take notice, not that they were worthy of any such consideration as was about to fall upon them.
Luella drove the last hairpin into the puffs, and sprang to the door just as her mother opened it. She felt something was about to happen. Could it be that she was to be invited to ride in that automobile at last, or what?
There in the hall, looking very much out of place, and as if he hoped his condescension would be appreciated, but he doubted it, stood the uniformed functionary that usually confined his activities to the second floor front, where the tips were large and the guests of unquestioned wealth, to say nothing of culture. He held in his hand a shining silver tray on which lay two cards, and he delivered his message in a tone that not only showed the deference he felt for the one who had sent him, but compelled such deference also on the part of those to whom he spoke.
“De lady and gen’leman says, Will de ladies come down to the private pahlah as soon aftah breakfus’ as is convenient, room number 2, second flo’ front?” He bowed to signify that his mission was completed, and that if it did not carry through, it was entirely beyond his sphere to do more.
Luella grasped the cards and smothered an exclamation of delight. “Second floor, front,” gasped her mother. “The private parlor! Did you hear, Luella?”
But Luella was standing by the one window, frowning over the cards. One was written and one engraved, a lady’s and a gentleman’s cards. “Miss Ward.” “Mr. Donald Ward Grant.”
“For the land’s sake, ma! Who in life are they? Do you know any Miss Ward? You don’t s’pose it’s that lovely gray-silk woman. Miss Ward. Donald Ward Grant. Who can they be, and what do you suppose they want? Grant. Donald Grant. Where have I, why—! O, horrors, ma! It can’t be that dreadful cousin has followed us up, can it? Donald Grant is his name, of course; yes, Donald Ward Grant. It was the Ward that threw me off. But who is the other? Miss Ward. Ma! You don’t——!”
“Luella Burton, that’s just what it is! It’s your Aunt Crete and that dreadful cousin. Crete never did have any sense, if she is my sister. But just let me get speech of her! If I don’t make her writhe. I think I’ll find a way to make her understand——”
Luella’s expansive bravery beneath the row of biscuit puffs seemed to shrink and cringe as she took in the thought.
“O ma!” she groaned. “How could she? And here of all places! To come here and mortify me! It is just too dreadful. Ma, it can’t be true. Aunt Crete would never dare. And where would she get the money? She hasn’t a cent of her own, has she? You didn’t go and leave her money, did you?”
“No, only a little change in my old pocketbook; it wouldn’t have been enough to come down here on, unless she bought a day excursion. Wait. I did leave five dollars to pay the grocer bill