Ladybird (26 page)

So the first month passed—the month of April—and Fraley felt that she had worked hard for her first month’s salary, even though she had done little else for her lady but select the clothes she felt were so necessary for the job. Not until she was earning some real money did she intend to write the letter she had promised to her friend the raven of the wilderness as he had called himself. She wanted to have something real to tell him about how she was getting on. So far she had done nothing but get ready to live. As soon as the shopping tours were over, she meant to begin to look around and get acquainted with New York.

But no! When the shopping was completed, Violet began to talk of going away for the summer. Mountains or seashore or a water trip. She couldn’t decide which to take.

“Why, you have just gotten home,” said Fraley in dismay. “It is so lovely here. We can take our books and go out there in the park and sit on a bench and read when the hot weather comes.”

Violet smiled at her simplicity.

“Nobody stays in the city in the summer, unless they are absolutely tied,” she told her.

“But why?”

“It is very hot here! All the best houses are closed, and people go away to get rested from the winter and enjoy themselves.”

It was of no use to talk. Going was the order of the day, so Fraley submitted, marveling over the change in her circumstances since she had started from the old cabin through her bedroom window, with only her father’s coat and handkerchief for outfit and the old gray bag containing the Bible for baggage.

Bags and suitcases and hatboxes! There seemed no end to the number that had to be packed. All those pretty dresses shut away in wardrobe trunks! She had no faith that she would ever have use for more than one or two.

And so began a round of merriment in strange hotels, utterly foreign to the child whose life had hitherto been so quiet and isolated.

There were many people whom Violet Wentworth knew at these hotels where they stopped for a week, sometimes two or three weeks, before moving on elsewhere. The days passed in a round of sea bathing, automobile riding, teas, bazaars, and the like. Fraley learned to play tennis and golf, and being the little athlete that she was, it did not take her long to become fairly proficient in both. Her arms were strong and sinewy, her eye was true, her brain was keen, and she was as lithe as a young sapling. Presently she began to be in demand to play these games because she could play well, and she really enjoyed it hugely.

Violet insisted on teaching her to dance, but she balked at the first dance she attended.

“It would be lovely if I could do it alone,” she said, “but I don’t like strange men, or any men, getting so familiar. My mother taught me…”

“There!” said Violet. “It’s time you learned that your mother was so far out of the world for so long that she was no guide for what you should do now. You have a right to choose your own life.”

Fraley was silent a moment, then she said, “Then I do choose. And I choose not to dance. I do not want any man to put his arm around me the way they do. I watched you dancing last night, and I didn’t like the way your partner touched you and looked at you. You are too dear and lovely. You—! He—! He reminded me of a bad man I knew out on the mountains.”

“Stop!” said Violet, flushing angrily. “You are getting impudent. You should dance, of course. But I don’t want to hurry you into things you don’t understand. You must get over labeling everything either good or bad. That’s ridiculous! You just watch this summer, and by fall you’ll feel differently about it. Come, let’s go and dress for dinner.”

So the days went by, and the evenings. Fraley, in blue taffeta with sweetheart roses or in white velvet with gold clasps and pearls or in some other richly simple outfit, would hover on the outer edge of the things her patroness enjoyed and watch sorrowfully. But sometimes she would wander off by herself for a while and watch the sea in the darkness.

The work she was supposed to be doing for Mrs. Wentworth seemed so indefinite and desultory that it often troubled her. It seemed to her that she was not giving enough service for all she was receiving. Of course there were always a few letters to be answered every day, and she had learned to answer them in a manner apparently quite satisfactory to her employer; at least she never found fault with her beyond correcting a few trifling mistakes. She seemed entirely content with this slight service and a few small errands occasionally. Her main desire seemed to be to have Fraley on call at any hour of the day or night. A less humble girl would have found out before many weeks had passed that Violet Wentworth wanted to show her off, that she looked upon her as a sort of possession to wield her social scepter with. But Fraley was never thinking of herself. It never entered her head that she was wanted for anything except the work that she could do, and she was most grateful always.

But one night she decided the time had come to write to her friend of the desert, the Raven, as she still called him.

In her rosy tulle, she sat down to the pleasant task, and she made a lovely picture indeed, with a smile on her lips and her eyes starry with memory.

It was a charming letter she wrote—frank and true, opening her heart concerning her many perplexities in the new life, which she could not tell to anyone else. The writing of it gave her great content. But she forgot to put in her New York address, and they were leaving for the mountains the next day. She had not even thought to write on hotel paper to give a clue to her whereabouts. This letter did not seem to her like other letters. It was almost like sending out a little prayer. She scarcely expected an answer.

The fall was coming on and the mountains were touched with crimson and gold, the woodbine on the rocks like flaming embroidery.

The hotel was swarming with people. Many of Mrs. Wentworth’s friends were there.

There was one tall gentleman at the next table in the dining room who troubled her greatly because he was constantly reminding her of someone, yet she could not think who it was. He had a large head of wavy white hair and keen blue, rather unhappy eyes. His mouth was drawn down at the corners as if he wanted everybody to get out of his way, and Fraley always got out of it if she possibly could.

He had a wife who never came down to breakfast, but neither did a lot of the other women there. This woman was wrinkled and painted and wore her hair marcelled so smoothly that it looked as if the waves were painted on a piece of white satin and fitted smoothly over her head. They had a grandson about fourteen who was always at odds with his grandfather and grandmother, particularly his grandfather.

One day Fraley found this boy out at the golf links, with no one to play with, and she scraped an acquaintance with him and played nine holes. They got along very well together and walked back to the hotel quite chummily. Just as they reached the steps, the boy told her his name was James MacPherson. He was being sent off to school the next day, and he didn’t want to go.

“Why, isn’t that funny!” said Fraley. “My name is MacPherson. Perhaps we are distant relatives somewhere back, who knows?”

“No such luck,” said the boy. “Gee, I wish I had a relative like you. You’re all right!”

She played tennis with him that afternoon, and they went down to the game room in the evening and played Ping Pong. He was a nice boy. She felt sorry for him. He said his father and mother were in Europe for a year, and his sister was in California, and he hated boarding school. He said he’d like to stay at home, but “Gramp had a grouch on and couldn’t see it.” Fraley got up the next morning early and played nine more holes of golf with him before he had to go and then felt forlorn and lonely as she saw him grinning good-bye to her as he drove off in the hotel bus down the mountain to the station.

After that she watched the grandfather and grandmother every day just because they belonged to the boy. She was sorry for them, they looked so discontented.

Looking at them and knowing they bore the same name made her think of her own father’s father and wonder if he was living.

She resolved to hunt him up as soon as she got back to New York and not delay any longer. No matter how he was or in what circumstances, she ought to look him up. Whether she revealed her identity or not would depend on conditions, but she must find him and know what sort of person he was. Her mother evidently had wished that.

That very evening when they both came up to go to bed, Violet called her into her room and talked with her awhile. She asked her more about her own home and who her father and mother had been, and Fraley, naturally reticent and anxious to keep the secrets of her family, told very little. Her mother and father had married against the wishes of their parents and gone west and lost sight of their respective families. That was all. She acknowledged that she knew nothing of her relatives’ financial standing, though she supposed they would be comfortably off. Her mother had always spoken of having a good home, and she had spoken as if the MacPhersons were rather proud people. That was all she knew.

Violet Wentworth narrowed her eyes as she watched Fraley under her lashes.

“Fraley,” she said, “if you should find out that any of these relatives are well off and want you, would you wish to leave me and go to them?”

“I would not want to leave you,” said Fraley with a wistful look, “but I could not tell what I ought to do until I knew all about it. Their being well off would not make any difference. I would go to them sooner if they were poor for they might need me to help them some way.”

“You’re a dear child,” said Violet Wentworth with a sudden unusual gust of emotion and kissed her for the second time.

“Now, run off to bed, or you’ll lose your complexion and be just as bad as I am.”

It was a great day for Fraley when they got back to New York. She settled all her beautiful fineries in the two large closets, fineries that she had grown accustomed to, now, and took for granted as she did her golden hair and the slimness of her ankles. That slimness was the envy of all the women in the hotel, though Fraley didn’t even know it.

Two days after they got home, she happened to overhear Violet answering a call on the telephone.

“Oh, is that you, Alison? I thought you weren’t coming back till next week. I’m so glad you are here. Listen, Alison, I’ve got a young girl staying with me this winter brought her back from my western trip. She’s a girl I’m very fond of indeed, and I want to show her a good time. I’m depending on you to take her to the country club and introduce her to all our young friends, and I wish you’d run over and take tea with us this afternoon informally. I want you two to know each other at once. She’s charming. I’m sure you will like her.”

Fraley stood still by the window in her own room and heard the receiver click as it was hung up. So that was the way that Violet was introducing her. A friend from the West who was staying there! Not a social secretary at all! There was something disturbing in the knowledge, though Fraley could not just tell why. It did not seem wholly honest to her truth-loving soul.

And so Alison Fraley was coming to see her!

She shrank from meeting this other girl who bore her mother’s dear name. Perhaps it was what Jeanne had said that had prejudiced her, and that was not right, of course. So she tried to put such thoughts out of her mind, and sitting down, she wrote to Seagrave the letter she had promised to write as soon as she was back in New York.

It was only a few sentences, but even that contact of the mind with the fine, true spirit who had been so wonderful to her on her journey seemed to give her new courage. She wrote:

With the letter in hand, she was starting out to mail it as Violet came out of her room.

“Where are you going, child? Not away, I hope. I have a friend coming in to have tea with us in a few minutes, and I want you to meet her. She’s the natural friend for you at this stage of the game and will do you a lot of good. Is that one of my letters?” And Violet took the letter out of Fraley’s unresisting hand.