Cloudy Jewel & Aunt Crete's Emancipation. Grace Livingston Hill
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here. She always makes a lot of fun of old people going in and sitting right on the edge of the water. I guess it won’t do.”
“Yes, it will do, if you want to. Didn’t I tell you this was my party, and Luella isn’t in it? That’s ridiculous. I’ll take you in myself, Aunt Crete, and we’ll have the best time out; and you sha’n’t be scared, either. I can swim like a fish. You shall go in every day. Would you like to begin at once?”
“I should,” said Aunt Crete, rising with a look of resolution in her face. She felt that Luella would condemn the amusement for her; so, if she was to dare it, it must be done before her niece appeared.
They went down to the beach, and for a few minutes surveyed the bathers as they came out to the water. Then with joy and daring in her face Aunt Crete went into the little bath-house with wildly beating heart, arrayed herself in the gay blue flannel garb provided for her use, and came timidly out to meet Donald, tall and smiling in his blue jerseys.
They had a wonderful time. It was almost better than shopping. Donald led her down to the water, and very gently accustomed her to it until he had led her out beyond the roughness, where his strong arms lifted her well above the swells until she felt as if she was a bird. It was marvellous that she was not afraid, but she was not. It was as if she had that morning been transferred back over forty years to her youth again, and was having the good times that she had longed for, such as other girls had—the swings, and the rides, and the skatings, and bicyclings. How many such things she had watched through the years, with her heart palpitating with daring to do it all herself! Her petulant sister and the logy Luella never dreamed that Aunt Crete desired such un-auntly indulgences. If they had, they would have taken it out of her, scorched it out with scorn.
The white hair with its natural waves fluffed out beautifully, like a canary’s feathers, after the bath, and Aunt Crete was smiling and charming at lunch in one of her fine new white dresses. She had hurried to put it on before Luella appeared, lest they might all be spirited away from her if Luella discovered them. She reflected with a sigh that they would likely fit Luella beautifully, and that that would probably be their final destination, just as Luella’s discarded garments came to her.
But there was nothing to mar the lunch-time and the beautiful afternoon, wherein, after a delicious nap to the accompaniment of the music of the waves, she was taken to drive in the fringed carriage again, while a bunch of handsome ladies, old and young, sat on the hotel piazza in more of those abundant rockers, and watched her approvingly. She felt that she was of some importance in their eyes. She had suddenly blossomed out of her insignificance, and was worth looking at. It warmed her heart with humble pleasure. She felt that she had won approval, not through any merit of her own, but through Donald’s loving-kindness. It was wonderful what a charm clothes could work.
“Put on your gray silk for dinner,” said Donald with malice aforethought in his heart.
“O,” gasped Aunt Crete, “I think I ought to keep that for parties, don’t you?”
“If ever there was a party, it’s going to be to-night,” said Donald. “It’s going to be a surprise-party. You want to see if Aunt Carrie and Luella will know you, you know.”
So with trembling fingers Aunt Crete arrayed herself in her purple and fine linen, very materially assisted by a quiet maid, whom Donald had ordered sent to the room, and who persuaded Aunt Crete to let her arrange the pretty white hair.
It was surprising to see, when the coiffure was complete, that she looked quite like the other old ladies, who were not old at all, only playing old.
“I don’t believe they will know me,” whispered Aunt Crete to herself as she stood before the full-length mirror and surveyed the effect. “And I didn’t think I could ever look like that!” she murmured after a more prolonged gaze, during which she made the acquaintance of her new self. Then she added half wistfully: “I wish I had known it before. I think perhaps they’d have—liked me—more if I’d looked that way all the time.” She sighed half regretfully, as if she were bidding good-by to this new vision, and went out to Donald, who awaited her. She felt that the picnic part of her vacation was almost over now, for Carrie and Luella would be sure to manage to spoil it someway.
Donald looked up from his paper with a welcome in his eyes. It was the first time she had seen him in evening dress, and she thought him handsome as a king.
“You’re a very beautiful woman, Aunt Crete; do you know it?” said Donald with satisfaction. He had felt that the French maid would know how to put just the right touch to Aunt Crete’s pretty hair to take away her odd, “unused” appearance. Now she was completely in the fashion, and she looked every inch a lady. She somehow seemed to have natural intuition for gentle manners. Perhaps her kindly heart dictated them, for surely there can be no better manners than come wrapped up with the Golden Rule, and Aunt Crete had lived by that all her life.
They entered the great dining-hall, and made their way among the palms in a blaze of electric light, with the head waiter bowing obsequiously before them. They had a table to themselves, and Aunt Crete rejoiced in the tiny shaded candles and the hothouse roses in the centre, and lifted the handsome napkins and silver forks with awe. Sometimes it seemed as if she were still dreaming.
The party from Pleasure Bay had reached home rather late in the afternoon, after a tedious time in the hot sun at a place full of peanut-stands and merry-go-rounds and moving-picture shows. Luella had not had a good time. She had been disappointed that none of the young men in the party had paid her special attention. In fact, the special young man for whose sake she had prodded her mother into going had not accompanied them at all. Luella was thoroughly cross.
“Mercy, how you’ve burned your nose, Luella!” said her mother sharply. “It’s so unbecoming. The skin is all peeling off. I do wish you’d wear a veil. You can’t afford to lose your complexion, with such a figure as you have.”
“O, fiddlesticks! I wish you’d let up on that, ma,” snapped Luella. “Didn’t you get a letter from Aunt Crete? I wonder what she’s thinking about not to send that lavender organdie. I wanted to wear it to-night. There’s to be a hop in the ballroom, and that would be just the thing. She ought to have got it done; she’s had time enough since I telephoned. I suppose she’s gone to reading again. I do wish I’d remembered to lock up the bookcase. She’s crazy for novels.”
All this time Luella was being buttoned into a pink silk muslin heavily decorated with cheap lace. There were twenty-six tiny elusive buttons, and Luella’s mother was tired.
“What on earth makes you so long, ma?” snarled Luella, twisting her neck to try to see her back. “We’ll be so late we won’t get served, and I’m hungry as a bear.”
They hurried down, arriving at the door just as Aunt Crete and Donald were being settled into their chairs by the smiling head waiter.
“For goodness’ sake! those must be swells,” said Luella in a low tone. “Did you see how that waiter bowed and smiled? He never does that to us. I expect he got a big tip. See, they’re sitting right next our table. Goodness, ma, your hair is all slipped to one side. Put it up quick. No, the other side. Say, he’s an awfully handsome young man. I wonder if we can get introduced. I just know he dances gracefully. Say, mother, I’d like to get him for a partner to-night. I guess those stuck-up Grandons would open their eyes then.”
“Hush, Luella; he’ll hear you.”
They settled into their places unassisted by the dilatory waiter, who came languidly up a moment later to take their order.
Aunt Crete’s back was happily toward her relatives, and so she ate her dinner in comfort. The palms were all about, and the gentle clink of silver and glass, and refined voices. The soft strains of an orchestra hidden in a balcony of ferns and palms drowned Luella’s strident voice when it was raised in discontented strain, and so Aunt Crete failed to recognize the sound. But Donald had been on the alert. In the first place, he had asked a question or two, and knew about where his relatives usually sat, and had purposely asked to be placed near them. He studied Luella when she came