CHAPTER XVI
A WELCOME INVITATION
WITH great presence of mind Hester suddenly turned out the lights in the music-room, and under cover of the darkness the girls scurried away.
Mrs. Lennox, grasping the situation, led her guests to the parlor, remarking:
“I allow my maids the use of the piano once a week. One can’t be too strict with them, and besides it keeps the instrument in better condition.”
Lady Pendered sniffed a little at this, and opined that the American customs were beyond her ken.
As the services of the lady’s-maids were required late at night, it had been arranged that Millicent and Helen should sleep at Mrs. Lennox’s; but the other six returned to Hilarity Hall.
Uncle Ned and Aunt Molly called for them at the kitchen door, and it was with difficulty they repressed their merriment until they were far enough down the street to be out of ear-shot.
Then all the girls talked at once, and as they had most appreciative listeners, the fun waxed high.
Next morning, bright and early, they returned to the scene of their labors.
Marguerite, armed with a huge and fluffy feather duster, posed anew before the pier-glasses.
Helen seated herself at a desk in the library, and though looking like the primmest and most industrious of amanuenses, was in reality writing a letter to her mother.
But the cooks and waitresses went to work, and exerted themselves to the utmost to show those “English sillies,” as Marjorie called them, what an American breakfast in its perfection is like.
“She wants her hair frizzed again!” said Millicent, in tones of deepest disgust, as she came into the kitchen to fill an alcohol-lamp.
“Well, it’s lucky they selected you, Lamplighter, for that position; I couldn’t have filled it.”
“No; you couldn’t even have filled the lamp,” said Millicent, as she hurried to her uncongenial work.
The breakfast was ideal—beautifully cooked, perfectly served, and appreciatively eaten.
When it was over, Hester sat for a few moments on the vine-clad piazza that ran across the back of the house.
To her came Lady Pendered, stepping softly and looking cautiously about her.
“You’re the cook, Hester, are you not?” she said.
“Yes, your ladyship,” answered Hester, and not over-graciously, for she didn’t like her countrywoman at all.
“Hester, I want you to go back to England and live with me. I’m sure you’d like your own home better than this savage country, and I’ll give you a pound a week and found.”
When Lady Pendered began her speech Hester felt angry; but as she continued, the funny side of it struck the pseudo-cook, and she answered:
“Hi couldn’t do it nohow, your ladyship. Hi ’ave a good ’ome ’ere, and Hi likes my missus, and Hi’d not be by way of livin’ with the haristocracy hanyway—but meanin’ no hoffense to your ladyship.”
After further useless attempts to persuade the superior cook to go home with her, Lady Pendered walked off in high dudgeon, and Hester flew back into the kitchen to tell Marjorie about it, which was not altogether necessary, as that young woman had gleefully viewed the scene through a latticed window.
Meantime Lady Lucy, in her boudoir, was trying to persuade Millicent to enter her service, and that romantic purveyor of fairy-tales was astonishing the English girl, to her own mischievous delight.
“I’d be glad to go with your ladyship,” she was saying. “I’m sure there couldn’t be a lovelier lady to work for in all England or Arabia. Your hair is just beautiful, miss—my lady, I mean. And of course my mistress could easily fill my place here.”
“Then come with me,” said Lady Lucy, eagerly. “I’ll be very good to you; you shall have every other Sunday afternoon out.”
“Oh, my lady, you’re too generous! But it’s no use tempting me thus. I cannot go. I fear to cross the wild and wavy ocean.”
“Nonsense!” cried Lady Lucy. “Is that all? Why, there’s not a bit of danger. We’ll go on the safest ship afloat.”
“It isn’t that, my lady; I fear not shipwrecks, but sharks!”
When Millicent put on her deep tragic tones and gazed intently at her hearer, she was very impressive; and the Lady Lucy began to feel a trifle scared.
“Sharks! What trash!” she said; but she was fascinated by Millicent’s eyes.
“Nay, my lady; ’tis true. A strange fatality follows all my family. My great-uncle fell overboard and was eaten by a shark; my second cousin was caught by a shark while swimming; and my aunt’s grandmother”—here her voice fell to a thrilling whisper—“went out for a walk in her garden, and a shark came right up out of the brook and bit off her left foot. Oh, no, my lady; never would I dare the terrors of the briny deep. ’Tis a curse—a fatal curse!”
By this time Millicent was stalking up and down the room, waving her arms about tragically and groaning deeply.
“Ah, my lady, tempt me not to a dire fate! Urge me not on an errand which would but lead me to my fearful doom! Fain would I serve so fair a mistress; but, alas! it is not mine to choose my lot. I am forever beneath a ban—a ban—a ban!”
At this point Mrs. Lennox entered, and Millicent at once assumed her ordinary manner, though Lady Lucy was quite unstrung.
This could not be explained, as she had no intention of telling her hostess how she had tried to lure away one of her servants, and so Mrs. Lennox came to the conclusion that her old friend’s daughter was a very hysterical, weak-minded young woman.
The morning wore away, and soon after luncheon the visitors prepared to depart.
Pretty Marguerite was a little too much in evidence for a parlor-maid; but she was so anxious to see as much as possible of the interesting English ladies that she couldn’t keep properly in the background. Her reward was a withering glance from Lady Pendered as she drove away, and an overheard remark that “Miranda’s servants were all admirable except that yellow-haired popinjay.”
But when the carriage containing the Ladies Pendered was entirely out of sight Mrs. Lennox’s manner underwent a decided change, and the girls realized for the first time how much she, too, had been masquerading.
“You’re perfect dears!” she cried. “Let me kiss you—the whole lot of you! It was the most wonderful success! And I rather think I impressed Mary Pendered with our American superiority in some ways at least. Girls, I shall never forget your kindness. You were trumps—absolute trumps. Now listen to me, my dearies. I have to go to the city to-morrow to get a new staff of servants, though I can assure you they’ll never give me such fine work as you girls have done. But that was fairyland, and we must now drop back to a prosaic reality in the matter of housekeeping. Now this is what I want you to do. Go back to your cottage for a couple of days, and then shut it up and come to stay with me as my guests for the rest of the time you are at Long Beach.”
“Oh, Mrs. Lennox,” cried Marguerite, “how lovely that would be! The housekeeping at the cottage was fun in some ways; but I’d far rather stay in this lovely home, and not cook my own meals.”
“Lazy Daisy!” said Marjorie. “But I own up that I, too, am a little tired of the working part of Hilarity Hall.”
“And well you may be,” chimed in Betty, “for you did far more than your share of it.”
“No, I didn’t,” declared Marjorie. “But as president of the Cooking Club I move we accept Mrs. Lennox’s invitation with heartfelt gratitude, and that a copy of these resolutions be engrossed and framed and presented to the lady in question.”
“Aye, aye!” cried seven voices; and Mrs. Lennox beamed with delight at the anticipation of the frolics of these young girls in her somewhat lonely house.
So the good lady went to New York, and the girls trooped back to Hilarity Hall and told Aunt Molly all about it.
“It seems a bit like defeat,” said Hester, who always liked to carry out successfully anything she undertook.
“Oh, no,” said Aunt Molly. “You have no especial reason for staying in the cottage if a pleasanter plan offers itself. Take the goods the gods provide, and be thankful.”
“And I do hate to cook,” confessed Marguerite. “It’s all very well for Hester and Marjorie. They can put a bone in a kettle of water, set it on the fire, and wag a bay-leaf at it, and behold a delicious soup! But I follow carefully that grimy old cookery-book, get out all the utensils in the cupboard, and stew myself into a salamander, and then I’ve only an uneatable mess as the result.”
“Never mind, my pretty parlor-maid,” said Marjorie; “some are born cooks—that’s me; some achieve cooks—that’s Mrs. Lennox; and some have cooking thrust upon them—and that’s what we’ll do after to-morrow. Now let’s write up the annals.”
“Who’ll write up the annals of our sojourn at Mrs. Lennox’s?” said Betty.
“Past or future?” queried Nan.
“Oh, past! We’ll all do the future ones when we get there.”
“Let’s leave the annals of the Pendered party to do after we get there, too,” proposed Millicent; “we’ll have more time and can do them better.”
All agreed to this; so Hester took the “Whitecap” and said she’d wind up the cottage annals in short order; which she did, with this result:
Of the merriment and laughter,
Of the jolly jokes and jesting,
Of the boating and the bathing,
Of the games of golf and tennis,
Of the happy, fleeting moments,
Much must here be left unwritten.
Of the play so nobly written,
Of the fine and clever acting,
Of the stirring, soulful music,
Of the wonderful stage-setting,
Of the appreciative audience,
We can make but hasty mention.
Of the masculine invasion,
Of the gorgeous spread they gave us
Of our grief at their departure,
Nothing can our pen betoken.
But we must express our thankful-
Ness to our devoted neighbors,
Uncle Edward and Aunt Molly,
For their never-failing kindness.
And we must admit, my sisters,
That we feel a trifle saddened
As we leave the little cottage
Where so gaily we have frolicked.
Ah, the sadness of the parting,
Ah, the chaos of the packing,
Ah, the settlements unwilling
With the butcher and the grocer!
Ah, the desolated cottage,
Ah, the sad and doleful maidens,
Ah, the weeping, wailing maidens —
“There, there, Hester, stop!” cried Helen, reading over her shoulder. “Your machine has run down; it’s out of gear; the spindle is broken! Stop, I beg of you!”
So Hester stopped; and—would you believe it?—such a good time did those girls have at Mrs. Lennox’s house that they never wrote in the “Whitecap” again until after they had left Long Beach and returned to their homes.
And, besides giving them the jolliest house-party they had ever known, Mrs. Lennox presented each of the eight with the dearest little chatelaine watch, engraved with her name and the date of the memorable visit of the Ladies Pendered.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Some illustrations have been moved slightly to keep paragraphs intact. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained as in the original publication.
[End of Eight Girls and a Dog, by Carolyn Wells]