CHAPTER VIIIQUEER TALK
Thedress of this unfortunate in whose fate Beth had taken such a strong interest, had already made the girl from Hudsonvale wonder. Such a shocking combination of color and tawdry finery Beth had seldom seen, even in a mill village, which Hudsonvale was.
Yet the tall, freckled girl wore the incongruous garments with utter unconsciousness. She never seemed to give her dress a thought.
On a green straw hat of the season’s mode, was a purple feather, which had plainly seen service in the rain. She wore a ragged feather boa and a rather soiled brown silk waist much worn under the arms and evidently originally built for a much fuller figure.
A black serge skirt of very narrow proportions seemed shrunk upon her, and was spotted and shiny. Low brown shoes and spats completed the costume.
“I suppose these awful garments are better than the uniform of the institution she fled from,”thought Beth. Then she asked aloud: “What did you think of doing when you ran away?”
Cynthia’s face blossomed into one of her unexpected smiles. “Just thinking of running away,” she said.
“But how did you propose to live?” asked the practical Beth.
“By drawing my breath—the same as usual,” and the strange girl went off into a spasm of laughter which Beth thought showed rather poor taste to say the least.
“But we all must do something besides breathing to live,” she said shortly.
“True,” said Cynthia. “Eat. And to eat we must have money, eh?”
“Yes,” said Beth, still with gravity.
“I intend to work,” said the older girl, composedly enough now.
“What kind of work can you do?”
Cynthia hesitated. She put her head on one side. Her eyes grew dark and unfathomable again.
“I ought to get a job at housework, oughtn’t I?” she said.
“I don’t know,” said Beth, thoughtfully. “Wherever you apply for work you will have a better chance of obtaining it if you look—look a little more like other girls, don’t you think?”
“What?” questioned Cynthia, evidently puzzled.
“Why—your dress, I mean. Perhaps we can help you make your appearance nicer.”
“You mean my clothes are ugly?” asked Cynthia, bluntly.
“And not altogether clean,” added Beth, quietly.
“Well, housemaids don’t have to dress very fancy, do they?” demanded the refugee. “I got these things I am wearing from a girl who worked as a maid and waitress, and I paid—— Well! I paid enough for them.”
“Of course,” mused Beth, “you couldn’t risk going out on the street in your uniform.”
“My what?” exclaimed Cynthia.
“Why—uniform. Didn’t you all dress alike in that place where you were?”
Cynthia turned her face from Beth suddenly. “Oh—yes,” she said, in a muffled tone. “I see. I just had to get different clothes.”
“Well, maybe we can fix you up a little better.”
“Who’s ‘we?’” demanded Cynthia, quickly and sharply.
“There is a friend here who is going to school too.”
“Are you on your way to school?” asked Cynthia.
“Yes,” Beth replied.
“What school?”
“Rivercliff.”
“And is that other girl I saw you with?”
“Yes. We had just met. She is an awfully nice girl. Maybe she can help.”
“What do you mean? To give me some of your clothes? Bless you, child!” and this strange girl laughed heartily. “Both of you are chunky and I am tall. Your clothes never would fit me in the world. I don’t want skirts half way to my knees. Make me look like a giraffe reaching for the highest branches of a cocoanut palm!”
She laughed again, and Beth joined her—but rather ruefully. To tell the truth, Beth thought her strangely particular for a poor girl—a runaway from an orphans’ home, or something of the kind.
But she did not prolong the argument with her guest. Cynthia Fogg (if such was her name) was frankly yawning.
“We will talk of it in the morning,” Beth said, with sympathy. “I see you are tired. You may take either berth——”
“Oh! I could never climb into an upper,” gasped Cynthia. “If I have to sleep in such a place it has to be in the lower berth.”
Evidently the runaway was used to taking thebest there was to be had—whatever that best might be. She seemed quite careless of other people’s needs or desires. She took Beth’s kindness in offering her the choice of the berths quite as a matter of course.
Naturally, there was not much room in the stateroom for two people. Cynthia seemed so tired that Beth sat back on a stool and allowed her to undress first. The girl from Hudsonvale could not help noticing that the stranger’s under-clothing was very good and spotlessly clean. These did not match her outside apparel in the least. Beth Baldwin could not help but think this strange.
“Well, I didn’t suppose I’d be sleeping in a stateroom to-night,” said Cynthia, with a careless laugh, as she got into the wider lower berth. “I didn’t have much money left after I bought these clothes of that girl.”
Beth wanted to ask how she had obtained money at all at the orphan asylum; but she did not wish to appear too curious. Perhaps they allowed the girls there to earn money by outside work. Cynthia spoke as though she had been bred to domestic service.
Beth, who was not unobservant, had looked more than once at the strange girl’s hands. They were white and soft, well kept, and slenderlyformed—not at all the hands of a girl who had dabbled in dish-water or used the mop and scrubbing brush. Her clean-cut features, too, and her low, cultivated voice, certainly belied the thought that she had spent her life in domestic service.
Beth began slowly to coil her hair for the night, having slipped out of her shirt waist. Cynthia blinked at her for a moment, yawned twice (showing very even, strong looking teeth, likewise perfectly kept) and then—deep, even breathing from the lower berth warned the other girl that Cynthia was asleep.