V
GOING TO THE PARTY
"Now," said G.o.dmother, the very next morning after she had told Mary Alice the Secret, "to see how it _works_! This evening I am going to take you to a most delightful place."
"What kind of a place?" Mary Alice begged to know. Already, despite the Secret, she was feeling fearful.
G.o.dmother squeezed Mary Alice"s hand sympathetically; and then, because that was not enough, she dropped a brief kiss on Mary Alice"s anxious young forehead. "I know how you feel, dear," she whispered. "All of us, I guess, have fairy charms that we"re afraid to use. Others have used them, we know, and found them miraculous. But somehow, we"re afraid. I"m all undecided in my mind whether to tell you about this place we"re going to, or not to tell you about it. I want to do what is easiest for you. Now, you think! It probably won"t be a very large a.s.sembly. These dear people, who have many friends, are at home on Friday evenings. Sometimes a large number call, sometimes only a few.
And in New York, you know, people are not "introduced round"; you just meet such of your fellow guests as happen to "come your way," so to speak. That is, if there are many. We"ll go down and call this evening--take our chance of few or many, and try out our Secret. And I"ll do just as you think you"d like best; I"ll tell you about the people we"re going to see and try to guess as well as I can who else may be there. Or I won"t tell you anything at all--just leave you to remember that "folks is folks," and to find out the rest for yourself.
You needn"t decide now. Take all day to think about it, if you like."
"Oh, dear!" cried Mary Alice, "I"m all in a flutter. I don"t believe I"ll ever be able to decide, but I"ll think hard all day. And now tell me what I am to wear."
She went to her room and got her dark blue taffeta and showed the progress of yesterday with the new dark net sleeves to replace the ugly ruffly white lace ones.
"That"s going to be fine!" approved G.o.dmother. "Now, this morning I am going to help you make the new yoke and collar; and then"--she squinted up her eyes and began looking as if she were studying a picture the way so many picture-lovers like to do, through only a narrow slit of vision which sharpens perspective and intensifies detail--"I think we"ll go shopping. Yesterday, when I was hurrying past and hadn"t time to stop for longer than a peek, I saw in a Broadway shop-window some short strings of pink imitation coral of the most adorable colour, for--what do you think? Twenty-five cents a string! I"ve a picture of you in my mind, with your dark blue dress and one of those coral strings about your throat."
G.o.dmother"s picture looked very sweet indeed when she came out to dinner that evening. It was astonishing how many of her fairies Mary Alice had found in two short weeks! The lovely lines of her shoulders, which she had never known were the chief of all the "lines of beauty,"
were no longer disfigured by stiff, outstanding bretelles and ruffled-lace sleeves, but revealed in all their delicate charm by the close-fitting plain dark net. And above them rose the head of such unsuspected loveliness of contour, which rats and puffs and pompadour had once deformed grotesquely, but which the wonderful new hair-dressing accentuated in a transfiguring degree. The poise of Mary Alice"s head, the carriage of her shoulders, were fine. But she had never known, before, that those were big points of beauty. So she _did_ took lovely, with the tiny touch of coral at her throat, the pink flush in her cheeks, and the sparkle of excitement in her eyes. It was her first "party" in New York, and she and G.o.dmother had had the most delicious day getting ready for it. Mary Alice couldn"t really believe that all they did was to fix over her blue "jumper dress" and invest twenty-five cents in pink beads. But it seemed that when you were with a person like G.o.dmother, what you actually did was magnified a thousandfold by the enchanting way you did it. Mary Alice was beginning to see that a fairy wand which can turn a pumpkin into a gold coach is not exceeded in possibilities by a fairy mind which can turn any ordinary, commonplace, matter-of-fact thing into a delightful "experience."
But something had happened during the afternoon which decided what to do about the party. They were walking west in Thirty-Third Street, past the Waldorf, when a lady came out to get into her auto. G.o.dmother greeted her delightedly and introduced Mary Alice. But the lady"s name overpowered Mary Alice and completely tied her tongue during the moment"s chat.
"I used to see her a great deal, in Dresden," said G.o.dmother when they had gone on their way, "and she"s a dear. We must go and see her as she asked us to, and have her down to see us." G.o.dmother spoke as if a very celebrated prima donna at the Metropolitan Opera were no different from any one else one might happen to know. Mary Alice couldn"t get used to it.
"I--I guess I manage better when I don"t know so much," she said, smiling rather wofully and remembering the man of many millions to whom she had been "nice" because she thought he was homeless and hungry.
So to the "party" they went and never an inkling had Mary Alice where it was to be or whether she was to see more captains of finance or more nightingales of song, "or what."
VI
THE "LION" OF THE EVENING
The house they entered was not at all pretentious. It was an old-fashioned house in that older part of New York in which G.o.dmother herself lived--only further south. But it was a remodelled house; the old, high "stoop" had been taken away, and one entered, from the street level, what had once been a bas.e.m.e.nt dining-room but was now a kind of reception hall. Here they left their wraps in charge of a well-bred maid whom G.o.dmother called by name and seemed to know. And then they went up-stairs. Mary Alice was "all panicky inside," but she kept trying to remember the Secret.
Their hostess was a middle-aged lady, very plain but motherly-looking.
She wore her hair combed in a way that would have been considered "terribly old-fashioned" in Mary Alice"s home town, and she had on several large cameos very like some Mary Alice"s mother had and scorned to wear.
Mary Alice was reasonably sure this lady was not "a millionairess or anything like that," and she didn"t think she was another prima donna.
The lady"s name meant nothing to her.
"Well," their hostess said as G.o.dmother greeted her, "now the party _can_ begin--here"s Mary Alice! _Two_ Mary Alices!" she added as she caught sight of the second one. "Who says this isn"t going to be a real party?"
Evidently they liked G.o.dmother in this house; and evidently they were prepared to like Mary Alice. Then, before she had time to think any more about it, three or four persons came up to greet G.o.dmother, who didn"t try to introduce Mary Alice at all--just let her "tag along"
without any responsibility.
Mary Alice found that she liked to hear these people talk. They had a kind of eagerness about many things that made them all seem to have much more to say than could possibly be said then and there. Mary Alice felt just as she thought the lady must have felt who, after the man standing beside Mary Alice had made one or two remarks, in a brief turn the conversation took towards the Children"s Theatre, cried: "Oh!
I want to talk to you about that." And they moved away somewhere and sat down together. Then, somehow, from that the general talk glanced off on to some actors and actresses who had come out of the foreign quarter where the Children"s Theatre was, and were astonishing up-town folk with the fire and fervour of their art. Some one who seemed to know a good deal about the speaking voice, commented on the curious change of tone, from resonant throat sounds to nasal head sounds, which generally marked the Slav"s transition from his native tongue to English; and gave several examples in such excellent imitation that every one was amused, even Mary Alice, who knew nothing about the persons imitated.
Then, some one who had been recently to California and seen Madame Modjeska and been privileged to hear some chapters of the memoirs she was writing, told an incident or two from them about the experiences of that great Polish artiste in learning English. A man asked this lady if she knew what Modjeska was going to do with her Memoirs when they were ready for publication; and they two moved away to talk more about that. And so it went. Mary Alice didn"t often know what the talk was about; but she was so interested in it that she found herself wishing they would talk more about each thing and wouldn"t break up and drift off the way they did. They had such a wide, wide world--these people--and they seemed to see everything that went on around them, to feel everything that can go on within. And they made no effort about anything. They talked about the Red Cross campaign against tuberculosis, or big game hunting in Africa, or the unerring accuracy of steel-workers on the skeletons of skysc.r.a.pers, throwing red-hot rivets across yawning s.p.a.ces and striking the bucket, held to receive them, every time. And their talk was as simple, as eager, as unaffected, as hers had been as she talked with G.o.dmother about her blue silk dress. All those things were a part of their world, as the blue dress was a part of hers.
She was so interested that she forgot to be afraid. And by and by when G.o.dmother had drifted off with some one and Mary Alice found herself alone with one man, she was feeling so "folksy" that she looked up at him and laughed.
"Seems as if every one had found a "burning theme"--all but us!" she said.
The young man--he _was_ young, and very good-looking, in an unusual sort of way--flushed. "I don"t know any of them," he said; "I"m a stranger."
"So am I," said Mary Alice, "and I don"t know any one either. But I"d like to know some of these people better; wouldn"t you?"
"I don"t know," returned the young man. "I haven"t seen much of people, and I don"t feel at home with them."
"Oh!" cried Mary Alice, quite excitedly, "you need a fairy G.o.dmother to tell you a Secret."
The young man looked unpleasantly mystified. "What secret?" he asked.
She started to explain. He seemed amused, at first, in a supercilious kind of way. But Mary Alice was so interested in her "burning theme"
that she did not notice how he looked. Gradually his superciliousness faded.
"Let us find a place where you can tell me the Secret," he said, looking about the drawing-room. Every place seemed taken.
"There"s a settle in the hall," suggested Mary Alice. And they went out and sat on that. "But I can"t tell you the Secret," she said.
"Not yet, anyway."
"Please!" he begged. "I may never see you again."
She looked distressed. "Oh, do you think so?" she said. "But anyhow I can"t tell you. I can only tell you up to where the Secret comes in, and then--if I never see you again, you can think about it; and any time you write to me for the Secret, I"ll send it to you to help you when you need it most."
"I need it now," he urged.
"No, you don"t," she answered. "I thought I needed it right away, but I wouldn"t have understood it or believed it if I"d heard it then."
And she told him how it was whispered to her, after she had been kind to the man of many millions.
"And does it work?" he asked, laughing at her story of the toast and tea.
"I don"t know, yet," she admitted, "I"m just trying it. That"s another reason I can"t tell you now. I have to wait until I"ve tried it thoroughly."
"You"re a nice, modest young person from the backwoods," laughed G.o.dmother when they were going home, "selecting the largest, livest lion of the evening and running off with him to the safe shelter of the hall."
"Lion?" said Mary Alice, wonderingly. "What lion?"
"The young man you kept so shamelessly to yourself nearly all evening."