CHAPTER V
BILLOWS THE BEAUTIFUL
Imagine trees, so many beautiful trees that they made canopies, tunnels and softest green shelters fit for fairies, for elves and for lovely little children. Outside and beyond this grove, imagine a carpet so green that the sky threw shadows upon it in futile jealousy, gardens so gorgeous that butterflies fluttered over the blooms, bewildered and confused in their temptations and then—just beyond and yet within all of this, think of a House Beautiful!
That was Billows, the summer home of Cara Burke.
A great iron fence raised its palings outside the farthermost borders of the estate. But only the ocean and the ocean drive were thus separated, for acres and acres were shut in behind the iron fence, and one couldn’t find the gates unless one knew where to look for them. Greenery everywhere.
Yes, they were very rich, the Burkes, but no one could call them “stuck up,” not even the most jealous, or most narrow-minded person at Sea Cosset, who was generally supposed to be old Sarah Jenkins, who sold peppermints and never stopped talking.
And here at the Billows, Cara Burke was holding her first house party, while among those present was Barbara Hale.
“Cara, you should be dressed and down here now,” her mother warned from the alcove near the stairs. “The girls are coming——”
“You do the honors, Moma,” called back Cara, in a voice quite pardonable if she was a little distance off. “That’s just Louise and Esther——”
No pompous butler barred the way, for the massive doors were open wide and the laughter of young girls was echoing clear up to Cara’s dressing-room, while Sniffy, the black poodle, bumped himself down the stairs to find out what it was all about.
“Come right along, girls,” Mrs. Burke welcomed the first arrivals, Esther, Louise, and Lida. “Cara will be down directly.”
The girls hesitated, overwhelmed by the beauty of the flowers and soft lights. They were already familiar with the house and its luxurious furnishings, but the urns and vases filled with blooms beneath the silken floor lamps made the rooms look like a scene from some gorgeous theatrical set.
“I waited for Ruth,” Esther was saying, “but she didn’t come over. Then we drove over there and she was gone, in a taxi, her mother said.”
“Here she is now!” proclaimed Louise, for the rollicking Ruth was tripping up the stone steps, suit-case dangling by her.
“’Low girls!” she called out. “I missed you! But I got the worth of my money from old Taxi-Dermot,” she declared, “I made him drive me down along the ocean, and then—so that every one might see me, I directed him to drive past the tennis court——”
“Here’s Cara,” interrupted Louise. “Ruth, you didn’t shake hands with Mrs. Burke,” she whispered to the obstreperous Ruth, although Mrs. Burke had by now disappeared, leaving the scene to Cara and Sniffy.
Greetings and exclamations peculiar to girls who are only growing up and think they have already grown up, were being perfunctorily exchanged, when Cara’s car, almost noiselessly, rolled up the drive, and then a shadow appeared in the doorway. This time it was the Burke’s chauffeur, Dixon, and the suit-case he primly placed in the hall, over near the carved wooden settee, was none other than Barbara Hale’s.
“Oh, here’s Barbara!” exclaimed Cara, happily, rushing forward to greet the latest and last arrival, Barbara, in her green and white sport suit with the close-fitting white felt hat.
Cara gushed and gurgled, saying every pleasant thing she could think of and all but kissing Barbara, but it seemed as if all the joy was between those two. The other girls had fallen back a little, into a group of their own, and just then Barbara wondered if she were going to be treated as an interloper, an outsider.
Were they not glad to meet her?
“Girls!” called out Cara, “you all know Barbara, don’t you? We met her at the committee meeting, you know,” she pointed out breathlessly. “Barbara, this is Louise, and Lida, and you must know Ruth? Ruth Harrison——”
“Oh yes, I know Ruth,” interrupted the embarrassed Barbara, for she was feeling the same old catch in her breath which she always experienced when meeting a lot of strange girls.
But presently the ice was broken and the waters of sociability oozed along, if a little halting, when Esther blocked their way with her little snowball about Barbara being “a stranger in Sea Cosset, if she did live only just across the line.”
Of course Esther had to say that. “Just across the line”, as if a few scrub pines and a couple of wild fields could really make any difference in climate or territory. But one place was ordinary, Landing, the other exclusive, Sea Cosset.
Were they going to snub her? Cara’s profuse welcome seemed to Barbara a little strained, as if Cara were trying to cover up something. Only Ruth Harrison attempted to put Barbara at her ease and she undertook to criticize clothes.
“Now, that’s what I call a nifty little costume,” spoke out Ruth without an attempt at politeness. “Wherever did you get a rig like that, Barbara?”
Wherever did she get it? Barbara winced a little, then burst out laughing.
“No use trying to put on airs,” she declared gaily. “This is home-made and the cook helped me out.”
After that they all “joined in the chorus.” Every one told about where her clothes were bought, (if not actually quoting the prices) and there was more joy over a bargain—it was Ruth’s sport stockings two-ninety-eight, regular four dollars—than over the wonderful lace tracery on the side of Louise’s really lovely tub-silk dress.
Clothes! And Barbara would barely trust herself to utter the tricky little word!
“But are we all here?” Cara presently asked, for they were still hanging around the door, as if the arrival had not been completed.
Ruth counted six and that was all expected.
“Then let’s get the bags put away and go outside,” proposed Cara. “Since you haven’t been travelling——”
“But we have!” joked Ruth. “Didn’t I make the Taxi-Dermot drive me all over the world in his rattle-box?”
“Then perhaps you want to change,” suggested Cara in the same joking manner. “You must be worn out, Ruthie dear,” she mocked. “I’ll have my maid help you into a warm baa-th——”
“You will not! I’ve been in the ocean and if I don’t walk straight I’ll spoil something, for my ears are leaking the briny,” chuckled Ruth, merrily.
Barbara was merely looking on and listening. She felt out of place, even awkward, but she knew how to affect poise even if she didn’t feel it. Yes, she had needed the companionship of girls; there was no denying that, she was secretly willing to admit.
Up the stairs they raced, suit-cases banging along with them, while Sniffy, the poodle, turned up his little black nose and went the other way. The Burkes might not have been of the class picturesquely called “high-hat” which is the newer word for high-toned, but Sniffy was worse than that. He was snobby. He hadn’t any use for giggling girls and he gruntily resented their invasion of the beautiful Billows.
“I was going to have a drawing for room-mates,” Cara told the girls who were now all gathered in her gold and green room. “But honestly, girls, I just——”
“Oh, we know you want Barbara——”
“Babs,” corrected Cara. “We’re going to call you Babs, aren’t we?” she asked the girl who was lost in admiration of a marine scene that hung between the two latticed windows.
“Let’s get out while it’s so lovely——” suggested Esther, and in that little suggestion one might have noticed that Esther was adroitly managing to divert attention from Babs. For which Babs was thankful, although Esther could not possibly have known that.
Suit-cases unpacked and room-mates assigned, presently they were racing off to the tennis court although apparently no one was going to play.
“Too hot,” was the verdict on that suggestion, but it was more likely too much trouble; and besides, Esther and Louise at least were not dressed for tennis.
It was all very unreal to Barbara. These beautiful grounds, the gaily dressed girls, so care-free, so frivolous and more than anything else, so girlish. It must be fine to feel free from anxiety. There were Dora’s wages due, and Dr. Hale’s bills not coming in promptly, there were the cultures for experiments to be paid for and they were so expensive. And now, if her father was determined to shut her help out, that would mean also the loss of Glenn Gaynor’s assistance, for he worked with Barbara, enjoying the experiments and calling them fun when they worked them out together. He would hardly enjoy Dr. Hale’s professional methods; what boy, working alone, would?
Words are halting and inadequate to express the mental flashes that pictured all this in Barbara’s mind, for it came as clearly and as quickly as the penetrating gleams of the late afternoon sunshine, as they shot through indifferent clouds. Not even the insistence of the girls’ laughter nor Cara’s challenge to knocking up balls, could disguise the reality of the worries she had tried and failed to leave behind her at home.
And clothes! Clothes! How they mocked her now! She who could sally forth triumphantly in a skirt, unhemmed (frayed out for effect!); in a sweater that Dora made for the church fair and it didn’t sell, in a hat—no, without a hat. Around home and in her unhampered outdoor life all of this and even worse was all right, rather individual and by no means a hardship. But now, here with these daintily dressed girls, of whom even the careless Ruth Harrison admitted paying two dollars and a half for sport stockings, here Barbara fully realized her shabbiness.
They were seated on the low, white Roman benches, and Cara, who was wearing a simple but lovely white flannel, had just jumped up to bat a few balls over or under the net. Glad of a chance to relieve her misgivings with some positive action, Barbara quickly followed, and these two girls were again apart from the others, rather unintentionally.
“I told you,” remarked Esther to Louise.
“What?” demanded Louise.
“What? Why that,” pointing to the flying figures at the tennis net.
“Well, what of it? Cara asked us to play, didn’t she?” Louise was not going to let a small thing like Cara’s open preference for Barbara spoil her good time.
“Isn’t she wonderfully athletic?” pointed out Lida. She meant Barbara and she meant the remark to be a compliment.
“Oh, yes.” Esther’s eyebrows went up quizzically.
“Whew!” whistled Ruth Harrison. “Look at that jump! And we sit here like bumps on logs. Say girls, if we’re not going to ‘bust’ our new clothes doing that, we had better find something else to do. As a grandstand this bench isn’t big enough,” and she tried to push Louise off at the other end.
It was presently agreed that the non-players should go down to the lake. The lake was accessible from one end of the grounds, and when Ruth called out the glad news to Cara, she, Cara, insisted upon going too.
That her other guests were missing her while she batted balls with Barbara, Cara easily guessed, but as they planned a boat ride Barbara hesitated.
“I just love this exercise and really need it,” she demurred. “Let me play around here and you go along for your sail,” she entreated Cara.
“And leave you all alone?” sang out little Lida.
“All by my loney,” laughed Barbara. “Don’t worry about me, I’m all right,” and she continued to bat balls against the high wire net that served to keep them within bounds.
“OH!” GASPED BARBARA. “IT’S NICKY! AND HE’S HURT!”
Cara hesitated. “I am determined to let every girl do just as she pleases,” she remarked. “But I hate to leave you alone, Babs.”
“Please do,” begged Barbara. “I’m having a wonderful time,” and she sprang for a ball that tried to escape her racket, while Ruth again shouted merrily in applause.
Cara, Lida, Ruth, Louise and Esther, comprising the entire house party with Barbara excepted, started off along the winding path to the lake. Unconsciously Barbara sighed. It was good to be left alone.