CHAPTER XXVIIIMISS FREYLINGHAUSEN
Larry’ssurprise included a novel way for Beth and a dozen of her girl friends to get home for the holidays. These girls, besides Beth and Molly, lived in the river towns strung along the Nessing between the school and Hudsonvale. Larry secured a huge sleigh in Jackson City and a team of well sharpened horses with a sober driver to take them down the river on the ice. Miss Hammersly approved of the party starting early in the morning so as to make Hudsonvale before night.
The girls could drop off at their several home towns, while Molly would remain over night with Beth and go on to Hambro—and the seven aunts—the next day. Larry was to sit on the driver’s seat and act as courier for the party.
It was an exciting and novel ride, and all the girls pronounced it a lovely adventure. They thanked Beth as their hostess, for all seemed to take it for granted that had it not been for Beth, Larry Haven would not have done such a thing.
There was a crowd to see them off when thethe sleigh slid down upon the ice, and in it Molly saw Mr. Roland Severn. She beckoned to him to come close, and whispered:
“Grieve not, brave youth! There are other fish in the sea quite as good as those already hooked.”
“Thank you, Miss Granger. I am quite sure of it,” he returned, with gravity. “I shall be in Hambro before New Year. May I call?”
“Cracky-me!” Molly was startled into exclaiming. “I wasn’t looking upon myself in the light of a fish, nor do I wish to be so considered.”
But she had to admit to Beth that Mr. Severn was quick at repartee. “It isn’t often that anybody gets the best of lil’ Molly. I wonder if I could draw a portrait of him—as a cat, of course—or perhaps a fish!”
It was a gay and busy holiday time for Beth. The family seemed particularly glad to see her. And Beth found a new spirit of hopefulness in the little cottage.
Marcus had been taking a business course at an evening school for some time. Young as he was, he had been advanced by his employer to the typewriter and was drawing eight dollars a week. Mr. Baldwin seemed very cheerful, too, and Beth thought he seemed a hundred per cent. better.
Larry and she had been acting the part of very good friends for nearly a fortnight; but for twodays after her return home Beth did not see the young lawyer at all.
“Was he going to withdraw into his shell again?” she queried. She scarcely knew what to make of Larry in some of his moods; and she was old enough now to resent such conduct.
But on the third evening Larry appeared at the Bemis Street cottage, and evidently in high spirits. He brought from his mother a particular and written invitation for Beth to be present at an evening function at Mrs. Haven’s, scheduled to occur in the week between Christmas and New Year.
“You ought, really, to have a new dress,” Mrs. Baldwin said, all of a flutter. “Euphemia always has such nice people at her evening parties.”
“Tempt me not!” laughed Beth. “I have been hobnobbing with the rich so long, that Mrs. Haven’s dressiest affairs have no terrors for me. Besides, I can’t afford it. Moreover, the black lace and silver is new here in Hudsonvale.”
“Likewise,” said Ella, with her head on one side like a saucy sparrow, “Larry has never seen her in that.”
Beth drove her out of the room then; but it was for another reason. She asked, frankly: “Mamma Baldwin, don’t you think I am old enough now to wear Great-grandmother Lomis’ corals?”
Her mother fairly gasped. She sat down suddenlyand looked up into her eldest daughter’s face with almost a pleading expression in her own.
“My dear Beth!” she whispered.
“Mother dear! what is the matter?” demanded the girl, a little frightened by her mother’s air.
“I—I shrink from telling you. Those beautiful corals! Been in the family so long! And you had been led to expect them!”
Mrs. Baldwin was actually sobbing. Her daughter put both arms around her and hugged her close.
“There, there, dear! Never mind! If you don’t want me to wear them——”
“But I’d be glad to have you wear them, if——”
“If what?”
“If they were yours to wear!”
“What—what do you mean?” stammered Beth.
“They had to be sold, my child! I had to sell the heirloom that had been so long in our family. You will never be able to wear the corals again, dear Beth.”
Beth actually swallowed something that seemed to choke her. “Oh, my dear!” she said. “I might have known you poor folks at home were having a worse time than you let selfish me know.”
“No, no, Beth!” cried Mrs. Baldwin. “Theywere sold before your father left the Works. They were sold to pay your first year’s tuition!”
“What?” almost shouted Beth.
“Yes, my dear. Forgive me——”
“Forgive you?” cried the deliriously happy Beth, trying to dance her mother about the room. “Why, darling little Mumsy! you have freed my heart of a great burden of woe! I’m glad to go to Mrs. Haven’s party to-night——”
“What are you saying, child?”
“Oh, well! I can look everybody straight in the eye and tell each and every one—— Well! never mind! I am happy—sohappy!”
“But, my dear child! Are you crazy? Your Great-grandmother’s corals——”
“Goodness me, Mother mine!” interposed Beth. “What do you suppose I care about the old corals—really? This that you tell me lifts a load off my mind. Then you didn’t borrow money to send me to Rivercliff?”
“No-o.”
“And the four hundred dollars hasn’t got to be paid back?”
“No-o.”
“Well then! why not happiness instead of woebegoneness?” cried the girl. “I am delighted. Only, Mother mine, I wish you had told me this long, long ago.”
“Why—dear——”
“I should have felt so much happier,” declared Beth. “So very much happier.”
Another thing happened that day besides Mrs. Euphemia Haven’s reception. Beth received a letter from Madam Hammersly. The madam wrote rather a queer letter, containing this important question:
“Is Cynthia Fogg with you in your town? I have received from her a Christmas present—expressed direct from Hudsonvale—a very beautifullavalierethat could not have cost less than ten pounds.” Madam Hammersly steadfastly refused to think in anything but English money.
It was plain to be seen that Madam Hammersly feared her one-time parlor-maid had become possessed of the valuable trinket dishonestly.
“What do you suppose that can mean?” Beth asked her mother; but, of course, Mrs. Baldwin was quite as ignorant as Beth herself of the whereabouts of Cynthia Fogg.
Beth wondered if she ought to make a house-to-house canvass of Hudsonvale for the elusive Cynthia. And if the girl was in the village, why had she not been to the cottage on Bemis Street? Cynthia knew Beth’s address.
Beth went to the Haven house that evening with several interesting matters in her busy mind—andshe went again in a taxicab. Marcus paid for it out of his own pocket. He rode along with her, “so as to get his money’s worth,” he said.
To tell the truth, Beth was rather disappointed when she found it was not merely an evening dance—for she “adored balls,” so she said. The larger dancing floor at Mrs. Haven’s was littered with chairs and benches, and, at first, when the guests came down from the dressing rooms, they were officiously herded into the rows of seats by ushers.
Mrs. Haven addressed her guests in her very best platform style. Larry’s mother was president of two clubs, vice-president of another, and principal speaker at most of their meetings. So she had pat the public speaker’s manner.
“I have brought you together this evening, dear friends, to be first entertained in a rather novel way. Afterward we shall have dancing. I met not long ago a very bright young lady from Philadelphia, who interested me very much in a subject now coming largely before the public, and I felt the wish to have her come here to talk to us of Hudsonvale, who may be helped by her experience.“The question of domestic service has of late years become of grave importance. This brave young lady—whose name you will all recognize, and whose social position you all know—had thetemerity to go forth and gain information at first hand regarding the real conditions of such service, and of the characters of the girls who enter into domestic service. I take great pleasure in introducing to you, ladies and gentlemen, Miss C. Emeline Freylinghausen, of Philadelphia, my guest for the holidays.”
“I have brought you together this evening, dear friends, to be first entertained in a rather novel way. Afterward we shall have dancing. I met not long ago a very bright young lady from Philadelphia, who interested me very much in a subject now coming largely before the public, and I felt the wish to have her come here to talk to us of Hudsonvale, who may be helped by her experience.
“The question of domestic service has of late years become of grave importance. This brave young lady—whose name you will all recognize, and whose social position you all know—had thetemerity to go forth and gain information at first hand regarding the real conditions of such service, and of the characters of the girls who enter into domestic service. I take great pleasure in introducing to you, ladies and gentlemen, Miss C. Emeline Freylinghausen, of Philadelphia, my guest for the holidays.”
A lithe girl, in a perfect evening gown, her hair piled high on her head, a plentiful sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and wonderfully compelling blue eyes, stepped forward and bowed. When she began to speak it was a pleasure to listen to her—whether or not one believed in her theories or cared about her subject.
Beth was seated far from the speaker and to one side. Was it——? Could it be——?
Beth heard the speaker’s tongue arraign mistresses who ill-treated their servants or were careless of their comfort. Her biting sarcasm was just what one would expect from Cynthia Fogg’s lips.
But, Miss Freylinghausen, of Philadelphia, the heiress to millions, to houses and lands; and Cynthia Fogg, of whose green hat with the purple feather which Molly had knocked overboard from theWater Wagtail, Beth still retained a very vivid memory——
“Why, it is impossible!” gasped Beth, aloud, and forgot to applaud when the little, earnest talk was over. She sat in her seat, unable to rise, or even think connectedly, when the talk had ended.
Suddenly, the charming figure came down from the dais and seized Beth in her arms.
“Well, Chicken Little! who told you the sky had fallen?” demanded Miss C. Emeline Freylinghausen, shaking Beth, playfully.