CHAPTER IX
AN ORDER FOR A PARTY
“I SUPPOSE people do sometimes have to be away from their homes on Christmas day.” Betty held the “extra-special” shade she had just finished up against the light, and gazed pensively at the prancing horses and the hospitable red roof of the inn.
“It has been done,” gurgled Madeline, her mouth full of pins, “and it will be done again, with the Washington Square homestead rented and Sorrento, Italy, a little inaccessible from Harding, U. S. A.”
“Poor, lonely lady! Come and eat your Christmas dinner with mummy and me,” urged Babbie sympathetically. “Is it Tuesday or Wednesday that college closes?”
“Not till Wednesday,” murmured Madeline, “and then it’s me for freedom and the literary life!” She took the pins out cautiously, one by one. “It’s dear of you to ask me for the vacation, Babbie, but I’ve got to improve the shining hours. While the tea-room is shut, and Betty, the cruel slave-driver, has gone to be clasped in the arms of her adored and adoring family, I shall turn our palatial apartment into an author’s paradise—papers everywhere, genius burning, and positively no dusting allowed. If the wallpaper gets on my nerves I shall come over and start a fire here, and try the effect of a desk with a secret drawer in it on the imagination that Dick Blake rudely says I haven’t got.”
“I’m sorry, Madeline, but I don’t think I can go home.” Betty was swallowing hard to keep back the tears. She had thought it all out in the night, and made up her mind not to care, but telling it made it seem more final some way, and consequently worse. “Some of the orders can’t be filled until the last minute, and some will surely be late and have to be mailed. I haven’t made any payments to outsiders for two weeks, because I couldn’t take time to go over the accounts. I shouldn’t enjoy Christmas with all those things hanging over my head.”
“Then stop making those everlasting candle-shades and go to work on the accounts this very minute,” commanded Babbie, with a tilt of her determined chin.
“But if I do that,” Betty objected, “we can’t possibly fill our orders. Besides, I don’t believe the tea-room ought to be closed during the vacation. A good many girls stay over, and anyway it won’t seem businesslike.”
“I’ll keep it open then,” declared Madeline magnanimously.
“Oh, you couldn’t ever manage, Madeline. You’d make a mess——” Betty stopped short, with a swift effort to be tactful. “You’d ruin your imagination, I mean, thinking up new sandwiches and paying grocer’s bills.”
Babbie and Madeline exchanged despairing glances.
“I won’t dust our room, Madeline,” Betty promised, “not once in the whole two weeks, and you may scatter papers wherever you like. And you mustn’t think I mind terribly, Babbie. You’ve got to tend up to things you do for a living or else—— Oh, dear! who is that knocking?”
“I’ll go,” Babbie offered, “because I’ve just washed the paint off my hands.”
So Babbie Hildreth and not Betty, who had been sympathetic about lonely evenings, opened the door for Young-Man-Over-the-Fence, and after a frigid “Good-evening” stood frowning in disapproving silence while she waited for him to explain himself.
“I came to ask—that is, I wanted to see about placing an order. I suppose I shouldn’t have come this evening, only I was in a hurry to get things settled right away. Is Miss—the young woman who sits at the desk—could I see her?”
“I’m not sure,” Babbie told him coldly. “You can’t have dinner here, you know. This tea-shop closes at six, and it’s nearly eight now.”
“I’m very sorry,” murmured Young-Man-Over-the-Fence contritely. Babbie Hildreth in a blue gingham studio apron, with a distractingly becoming dinner-gown peeping out from underneath it, was a sight calculated to inspire contrition in the breast of any man who had unwittingly incurred her displeasure. “I’ll come back in the morning—no, in the afternoon,” he added humbly.
“THIS TEA-SHOP CLOSES AT SIX”
“If it was an order for Tally-ho candle-shades,” Babbie told him, still icily, “we’re not taking any more. We have all the work that we can finish for Christmas already.”
“No, it’s not candle-shades,” Young-Man-Over-the-Fence assured her blandly. “It’s a bigger thing than that.” He paused impressively and was rewarded when a gleam of curiosity crossed Babbie’s impassive little face. “I’ll come back to-morrow afternoon,” he repeated.
“Wait a minute,” Babbie commanded swiftly. Betty had inspired her with a sense of the importance of being businesslike, and here was a big order that ought, perhaps, to be treated with special respect and consideration. “I’ll tell Miss Wales that you’re here and possibly she can see you more conveniently now. The name, please?”
“Robert Thayer, Junior, from the stocking factory,” he told her. “And say, please, that I’ve come on business, about a Christmas party that I want to arrange for.”
“I don’t think we do catering for parties,” Babbie told him, “and I believe we are to close for the Christmas holidays. But I’ll tell her.”
A minute later Betty was shaking hands with Young-Man-Over-the-Fence, alias Mr. Robert Thayer, Junior, of the stocking factory.
“It’s lucky I didn’t just cut in here to be cheered up, as I’d intended to,” he explained with a sigh of relief. “That other member of the firm is a suspicious person—or perhaps you’d warned her against me. But her theories were unfounded. May we sit down? You see I’ve had an inspiration, and I couldn’t wait to get it going.”
“That’s just like Madeline,” laughed Betty. “She wakes me up in the middle of the night with her inspirations. Once she even wanted me to dress and come over here with her to see whether we could make a big horseshoe out of oats.” Betty pointed to the one over the fireplace. “And then when I wouldn’t, she was days and days getting around to it.”
Mr. Thayer laughed appreciatively. “I understand that perfectly. There’s everything in being in the right mood for things. Now to-night I’m hot on the trail of a Christmas party. I was over in my office directing invitations—they like to get formal invitations, you know—when it suddenly struck me that if I had a regulation Christmas party it would naturally be a regulation failure, like the others I’ve tried. So I racked my brains for something extraordinary, and nothing came. Then I looked over here and thought of all the extraordinary things you’ve planned, and here I am to place an order for one extraordinary party, with food, all guaranteed to please three hundred assorted factory hands.”
Betty stared at him in amazement. “I don’t understand——” she began.
Young-Man-Over-the-Fence smiled his merry, reassuring smile. “As your tea-shop is to the regulation kind of tea-shop, so is the Christmas party I want to the regular thing. I want it to look something like this room, to be—well——”
“Stunty,” supplied Betty quickly.
“Stunty—that’s a new one on me, but if it describes all this——” He waved his hand comprehensively at the fire, at a grinning gargoyle with its hanging lantern, and across to the dusky line of stalls.
“Features, Madeline calls the queer little touches,” Betty broke in again. “I understand what you want. You want a party in Harding style,—that will go off the way the spreads and Hallowe’en things and freshmen frolics do. Madeline could think up something lovely. But I don’t see—how did you happen to come to us?”
“Because I felt sure you could get me what I wanted.”
“But we don’t do things like that,” Betty objected.
“Then you ought to,” he told her. “There’s a field for it.” He laughed merrily. “I’m the field. And—I dislike to mention anything so sordid, but it pays very well, much better than tea and candle-shades, I’m sure. In London once I remember my sister paid twenty pounds to a firm for planning her a cotillion. I’d thought that would be about right for this party.”
“Twenty pounds—why, that’s a hundred dollars!” cried Betty incredulously.
The young man nodded. “That doesn’t include the refreshments, you understand. It’s for the design only—the design for a stunty party with features. And then think of all the pleasure you’ll be giving. But—I forgot; the young lady who let me in said you were going to close your shop for Christmas. Perhaps that means that you won’t be here to run a party on Christmas eve.”
Betty smiled sadly. “We were just discussing that and we’ve decided—at least, I’ve decided, to keep open during the holidays. But we’re very busy.” She considered, frowning. “It all depends on whether Madeline likes the idea,” she decided at last. “I’ll call her down, and you can tell her about it.”
“Oh, wait one minute,” he begged, as Betty started off. “Tell me how to make her like it, please. Is she the one who let me in?”
“No,” Betty told him, “but of course Babbie will have to approve too.” She stopped to consider again. “I’d tell you how to make Madeline like it if I knew myself, but I don’t. It just depends on how a thing strikes her.”
But when Madeline and Babbie appeared, Betty did help by breaking the ice, for she gravely presented “Mr. Fence” to the other members of the firm, whereupon Madeline promptly told him about his pseudonym at the Tally-ho, and then, rather abashed by her own temerity, lit the candles in the stalls to show him how she had named them that very evening, according to his suggestion.
So they were all, except Babbie, very friendly, when they sat down again to discuss Mr. Thayer’s order; and Mr. Thayer seemed to have decided that it was safest to ignore Babbie, for he addressed himself entirely to Madeline, as he explained again what he wanted.
And of course, because it was absurd and unexpected, Madeline liked the idea. She forgot how busy they were already, and how she hated conducting rehearsals and working out details. She threw her Literary Career to the winds.
“You want it on Christmas eve?” she began briskly. “Then we’ll have a masque of the Christmas stockings to start off with. Isn’t that an appropriate touch for the stocking-makers’ Christmas party? How old are your youngest stocking-makers, please?”
“They say they’re fourteen, as the law requires,” explained Mr. Thayer grimly, “but you’d never know it. Anyhow they’re small enough to do beautifully for a masque of the Christmas stockings.”
“And then,” Madeline went on, staring hard at the shiny tip of Babbie’s slipper, “and then—well, Twelfth Night isn’t till the sixth of January, but probably the stocking-makers won’t object to anticipating the date a little. We’ll have a pageant of Twelfth Night cakes and Twelfth Night bakers. And we’ll choose and crown a King and Queen of the Revels, in accepted Twelfth Night style. Does that sound promising to you, Mr. Thayer?”
“It sounds great,” he assured her enthusiastically, “and I’m sure it will be as good as it sounds.”
“The invitation card,” Madeline ordered calmly, “is to have a beautifully frosted cake at the top and a stocking with a Santa Claus head sticking out of it at the bottom. You’ll just have to throw away the ones you got ready to-night. I’ll come around some time to-morrow to look over my children.”
“Thank you. That will be great,” said Mr. Thayer eagerly, and suddenly turned to Babbie, who had listened in silence to all Madeline’s enthusiastic planning. “Won’t you please come too? It’s a queer place. I think you’d like going through it.”
“I shall probably have to come,” Babbie told him rather ungraciously, “because Madeline can’t go alone, and Betty will be too busy.”
“I’m sorry that I should be the means of inconveniencing you,” Mr. Thayer told her gravely, holding out his hand. “Good-night.” And he was gone, with only a nod for the others.
“Goodness, Babbie, but you’re chilly,” Madeline protested.
“Well, you’re absurd,” Babbie retorted. “You can never make such a thing go in the world, Madeline. That sort of people won’t know how to carry it through.”
“Of course not,” Madeline conceded. “I’ve thought of that. Some of the children will do for Stockings, but for the Cakes and the Jester and all that, I’m going to have college girls who stay here over the holidays. I think I’ll go up now to see Georgia about who’ll be here.”
“Oh, what a splendid idea!” cried Betty eagerly. “I’d been wishing we could make a Christmas for the left-overs.”
“I don’t believe they’ll want to bother with anything like this,” objected Babbie. “Besides, only freaks stay over Christmas.”
“Bother!” Madeline took her up. “They’ll jump at it—the freaks particularly, because they don’t get in on such gay doings very often. Now, Betty, don’t you worry about my helping on the ‘extra-special’ order-list. I was afraid Mr. Thayer would be scared off if I explained that I meant to dump all the finishing touches on the left-over girls. They can make the costumes, too, Wednesday night and Thursday.”
“If he knew you better, he would have been sure that you’d never bother with any finishing touches yourself,” Babbie remarked crushingly.
“How can you expect a person who has such splendid ideas to bother with fussy little details?” put in Betty, who had listened in wondering admiration to Madeline’s offhand suggestions. “I’m sure the college girls will like to help. The only trouble is, if they do most of the work who ought to have the hundred dollars?”
“What hundred dollars?” chorused the other two, and Betty explained that the financial side of the Tally-ho’s biggest order was being entirely overlooked.
“It ought not to be put in with the tea-room profits, except the bill for the refreshments,” Babbie declared, “and I certainly ought not to have any of it. I shan’t be any help. You and Madeline can divide, because you made friends with him first, and she thought up the entertainment.”
“But if the others sew for us——” began Betty.
“Oh, let’s wait and see how it comes out,” Madeline suggested easily, slipping on her ulster. “You two can be planning Twelfth Night cakes for refreshments, while I’m gone. Did you ever see them in London, Babbie? They’re fearfully and wonderfully concocted.”
At the door she came back to make another suggestion. “All big businesses have their pet charities. We might have the stocking people for ours. We could just ask Mr. Thayer to pay the expenses, and make him spend the rest of the money for a club-house—well, keep it toward a club-house then, Miss Betty the practical.”
Next morning Madeline came back from her visit to the factory more enthusiastic, if possible, than before. She had talked to the Italian boy with the bandaged arm—he came down every day to have it dressed by the company’s doctor—and he was from Sorrento and knew her father, had posed for him once in the olive orchard behind the villa. Even Babbie had been interested in the children, Italians, French, Poles, Bohemians, Greeks, dark-eyed, swift-fingered, chattering eagerly to “da pretta lada” in broken English, and all agog over the mysterious Christmas party.
“They live all together down there somewhere.” Babbie pointed vaguely off behind the kitchen. “They were nearly all brought over to this country three years ago, when the factory was opened. It’s a real foreign quarter, Mr. Thayer says, with old-country customs and pitiful poverty and ignorance. It’s queer that we never knew anything about them, isn’t it? The college is on that hill, and the factory on this, and yet they’re so far apart that one has hardly heard of the other.”
“So the stocking people weren’t so terribly unpleasant after all?” asked Betty slyly.
Babbie blushed faintly. “Well, you and Madeline made me cross. You gave in so to his chin. I suppose I was disagreeable, but I was perfect to-day, wasn’t I, Madeline?”
“Depends on what you mean by perfect,” Madeline told her. “If you mean that you made everybody in the place from the social secretary, or whatever Mr. Robert Thayer, Junior, calls himself, to the smallest cotton-spinner of them all fall madly in l——”
Madeline and the rest of her sentence found themselves smothered under a huge cushion, which Babbie pummeled viciously.
“Don’t bother me about that,” she commanded wrathfully. “One minute you say I’m haughty and disagreeable, and the next——”
“The next,” Betty told her comfortingly, “we only say you’re such a darling, that people can’t help seeing it, you silly child.”
“I don’t care,” sniffed Babbie tearfully. “I shan’t go over there again, and I shan’t be here for his old party. So now!”
After which declaration of rights, Babbie did her hair low in her neck, donned her most becoming afternoon dress, and asked a dozen adoring freshmen to tea with her in the stall named “Jack o’ Hearts.” As Babbie sat in the most secluded corner of the stall, it is doubtful if anything but the tip of her ear, a nodding plume, and an absurdly small hand stretched out to press more of Cousin Kate’s cookies upon a hungry freshman, could have been visible to the staid young gentleman who had his tea at a small table in the alcove opposite.
“He’s the new history professor,” one of the freshmen announced in a sepulchral whisper. “Isn’t he handsome?”
“No, he isn’t,” snapped Babbie. “Isn’t the new history professor, I mean. He’s something or other in a factory. So don’t be making plans to move into a history course after midyears, Susanna.”
