"Emily, you know really Ella is awfully proud of you," she was finally saying, "and, as for trying to influence your mother, you can"t blame her. You"re your mother"s favorite--anyone can see that--and I do think she feels--"
"Well, that"s true!" Emily said, mollified. A silence followed. Susan began to settle her head by imperceptible degrees into the pillow; perhaps Emily was dropping off! Silence--silence--heavenly delicious silence. What a wonderful thing this sleeping porch was, Susan thought drowsily, and how delicious the country night--
"Susan, why do you suppose I am Mama"s favorite?" Emily"s clear, wide-awake voice would pursue, with pensive interest.
Or, "Susan, when did you begin to like me?" she would question, on their drives. "Susan, when I was looking straight up into Mrs. Carter"s face,--you know the way I always do!--she laughed at me, and said I was a madcap monkey? Why did she say that?" Emily would pout, and wrinkle her brows in pretty, childish doubt. "I"m not a monkey, and _I_ don"t think I"m a madcap? Do you?"
"You"re different, you see, Emily. You"re not in the least like anybody else!" Susan would say.
"But WHY am I different?" And if it was possible, Emily might even come over to sit on the arm of Susan"s chair, or drop on her knees and encircle Susan"s waist with her arms.
"Well, in the first place you"re terribly original, Emily, and you always say right out what you mean--" Susan would begin.
With Ella, when she grew to know her well, Susan was really happier.
She was too honest to enjoy the part she must always play with Emily, yet too practically aware of the advantages of this new position, to risk it by frankness, and eventually follow the other companions, the governesses and trained nurses who had preceded her. Emily characterized these departed ladies as "beasts," and still flushed a deep resentful red when she mentioned certain ones among them.
Susan found in Ella, in the first place, far more to admire than she could in Emily. Ella"s very size made for a sort of bigness in character. She looked her two hundred and thirty pounds, but she looked handsome, glowing and comfortable as well. Everything she wore was loose and dashing in effect; she was a fanatic about cleanliness and freshness, and always looked as if freshly bathed and brushed and dressed. Ella never put on a garment, other than a gown or wrap, twice.
Sometimes a little heap of snowy, ribboned underwear was carried away from her rooms three or four times a day.
She was dictatorial and impatient and exacting, but she was witty and good-natured, too, and so extremely popular with men and women of her own age that she could have dined out three times a night. Ella was fondly nicknamed "Mike" by her own contemporaries, and was always in demand for dinners and lunch parties and card parties. She was beloved by the younger set, too. Susan thought her big-sisterly interest in the debutantes very charming to see and, when she had time to remember her sister"s little companion now and then, she would carry Susan off for a drive, or send for her when she was alone for tea, and the two laughed a great deal together. Susan could honestly admire here, and Ella liked her admiration.
Miss Saunders believed herself to be a member of the most distinguished American family in existence, and her place to be undisputed as queen of the most exclusive little social circle in the world. She knew enough of the social sets of London and Washington and New York society to allude to them casually and intimately, and she told Susan that no other city could boast of more charming persons than those who composed her own particular set in San Francisco. Ella never spoke of "society"
without intense gravity; nothing in life interested her so much as the question of belonging or not belonging to it. To her personally, of course, it meant nothing; she had been born inside the charmed ring, and would die there; but the status of other persons filled her with concern. She was very angry when her mother or Emily showed any wavering in this all-important matter.
"Well, what did you have to SEE her for, Mama?" Ella would irritably demand, when her autocratic "Who"d you see to-day? What"d you do?" had drawn from her mother the name of some caller.
"Why, dearie, I happened to be right there. I was just crossing the porch when they drove up!" Mrs. Saunders would timidly submit.
"Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord! Mama, you make me crazy!" Ella would drop her hands, fling her head back, gaze despairingly at her mother. "That was your chance to snub her, Mama! Why didn"t you have Chow Yew say that you were out?"
"But, dearie, she seemed a real sweet little thing!"
"Sweet little--! You"ll have me CRAZY! Sweet little nothing--just because she married Gordon Jones, and the St. Johns have taken her up, she thinks she can get into society! And anyway, I wouldn"t have given Rosie St. John the satisfaction for a thousand dollars! Did you ask her to your bridge lunch?"
"Ella, dear, it is MY lunch," her mother might remind her, with dignity.
"Mama, did you ask that woman here to play cards?"
"Well, dearie, she happened to say--"
"Oh, happened to say--!" A sudden calm would fall upon Miss Ella, the calm of desperate decision. The subject would be dropped for the time, but she would bring a written note to the lunch table.
"Listen to this, Mama; I can change it if you don"t like it," Ella would begin, kindly, and proceed to read it.
HIGH GARDENS. MY DEAR MRS. JONES:
Mother has asked me to write you that her little bridge lunch for Friday, the third, must be given up because of the dangerous illness of a close personal friend. She hopes that it is only a pleasure deferred, and will write you herself when less anxious and depressed. Cordially yours,
ELLA CORNWALLIS SAUNDERS.
"But, Ella, dear," the mother would protest, "there are others coming--"
"Leave the others to me! I"ll telephone and make it the day before."
Ella would seal and dispatch the note, and be inclined to feel generously tender and considerate of her mother for the rest of the day.
Ella was at home for a few moments, almost every day; but she did not dine at home more than once or twice in a fortnight. But she was always there for the family"s occasional formal dinner party in which events Susan refused very sensibly to take part. She and Miss Baker dined early and most harmoniously in the breakfast-room, and were free to make themselves useful to the ladies of the house afterward. Ella would be magnificent in spangled cloth-of-gold; Emily very piquante in demure and drooping white, embroidered exquisitely with tiny French blossoms in color; Mrs. Saunders rustling in black lace and lavender silk, as the three went downstairs at eight o"clock. Across the wide hall below would stream the hooded women and the men in great-coats, silk hats in hand. Ella did not leave the drawing-room to meet them, as on less formal occasions, but a great chattering and laughing would break out as they went in.
Susan, sitting back on her knees in the upper hall, to peer through the railing at the scene below, to Miss Baker"s intense amus.e.m.e.nt, could admire everything but the men guests. They were either more or less attractive and married, thought Susan, or very young, very old, or very uninteresting bachelors. Red-faced, eighteen-year-old boys, laughing nervously, and stumbling over their pumps, shared the honors with cackling little fifty-year-old gallants. It could only be said that they were males, and that Ella would have cheerfully consigned her mother to bed with a bad headache rather than have had one too few of them to evenly balance the number of women. The members of the family knew what patience and effort were required, what writing and telephoning, before the right number was acquired.
The first personal word that Kenneth Saunders ever spoke to his sister"s companion was when, running downstairs, on the occasion of one of these dinners, he came upon her, crouched in her outlook, and thoroughly enjoying herself.
"Good G.o.d!" said Kenneth, recoiling.
"Sh-sh--it"s only me--I"m watching "em!" Susan whispered, even laying her hand upon the immaculate young gentleman"s arm in her anxiety to quiet him.
"Why, Lord; why doesn"t Ella count you in on these things?" he demanded, gruffly. "Next time I"ll tell her--"
"If you do, I"ll never speak to you again!" Susan threatened, her merry face close to his in the dark. "I wouldn"t be down there for a farm!"
"What do you do, just watch "em?" Kenneth asked sociably, hanging over the railing beside her.
"It"s lots of fun!" Susan said, in a whisper. "Who"s that?"
"That"s that Bacon girl--isn"t she the limit!" Kenneth whispered back.
"Lord," he added regretfully, "I"d much rather stay up here than go down! What Ella wants to round up a gang like this for--"
And, sadly speculating, the son of the house ran downstairs, and Susan, congratulating herself, returned to her watching.
Indeed, after a month or two in her new position, she thought an evening to herself a luxury to be enormously enjoyed. It was on such an occasion that Susan got the full benefit of the bathroom, the luxuriously lighted and appointed dressing-table, the porch with its view of a dozen gardens drenched in heavenly moonlight. At other times Emily"s conversation distracted her and interrupted her at her toilet.
Emily gave her no instant alone.
Emily came up very late after the dinners to yawn and gossip with Susan while Gerda, her mother"s staid middle-aged maid, drew off her slippers and stockings, and reverently lifted the dainty gown safely to its closet. Susan always got up, rolled herself in a wrap, and listened to the account of the dinner; Emily was rather critical of the women, but viewed the men more romantically. She repeated their compliments, exulting that they had been paid her "under Ella"s very nose," or while "Mama was staring right at us." It pleased Emily to imagine a great many love-affairs for herself, and to feel that they must all be made as mysterious and kept as secret as possible.
It was the old story, thought Susan, listening sympathetically, and in utter disbelief, to these recitals. Mary Lou and Georgie were not alone in claiming vague and mythical love-affairs; Emily even carried them to the point of indicating old bundles of letters in her desk as "from Bob Brock--tell you all about that some time!" or alluding to some youth who had gone away, left that part of the country entirely for her sake, some years ago. And even Georgie would not have taken as seriously as Emily did the least accidental exchange of courtesies with the eligible male. If the two girls, wasting a morning in the shops in town, happened to meet some hurrying young man in the street, the color rushed into Emily"s face, and she alluded to the incident a dozen times during the course of the day. Like most girls, she had a special manner for men, a rather audacious and attractive manner, Susan thought. The conversation was never anything but gay and frivolous and casual. It always pleased Emily when such a meeting occurred.
"Did you notice that Peyton Hamilton leaned over and said something to me very quickly, in a low voice, this morning?" Emily would ask, later, suddenly looking mischievous and penitent at once.
"Oh, ho! That"s what you do when I"m not noticing!" Susan would upbraid her.
"He asked me if he could call," Emily would say, yawning, "but I told him I didn"t like him well enough for that!"
Susan was astonished to find herself generally accepted because of her a.s.sociation with Emily Saunders. She had always appreciated the difficulty of entering the inner circle of society with insufficient credentials. Now she learned how simple the whole thing was when the right person or persons a.s.sumed the responsibility. Girls whom years ago she had rather fancied to be "sn.o.bs" and "stuck-up" proved very gracious, very informal and jolly, at closer view; even the most prominent matrons began to call her "child" and "you little Susan Brown, you!" and show her small kindnesses.
Susan took them at exactly their own valuation, revered those women who, like Ella, were supreme; watched curiously others a little less sure of their standing; and pitied and smiled at the struggles of the third group, who took rebuffs and humiliations smilingly, and fell only to rise and climb again. Susan knew that the Thayers, the Chickerings and Chaunceys and Coughs, the Saunders and the St. Johns, and Dolly Ripley, the great heiress, were really secure, nothing could shake them from their proud eminence. It gave her a little satisfaction to put the Baxters and Peter Coleman decidedly a step below; even lovely Isabel Wallace and the Carters and the Geralds, while ornamenting the very nicest set, were not quite the social authorities that the first-named families were. And several lower grades pa.s.sed before one came to Connie Fox and her type, poor, pushing, ambitious, watching every chance to score even the tiniest progress toward the goal of social recognition. Connie Fox and her mother were a curious study to Susan, who, far more secure for the time being than they were, watched them with deep interest. The husband and father was an insurance broker, whose very modest income might have comfortably supported a quiet country home, and one maid, and eventually have been stretched to afford the daughter and only child a college education or a trousseau as circ.u.mstances decreed. As it was, a little house on Broadway was maintained with every appearance of luxury, a capped-and-ap.r.o.ned maid backed before guests through the tiny hall; Connie"s vivacity covered the long wait for the luncheons that an irate Chinese cook, whose wages were perpetually in arrears, served when it pleased him to do so. Mrs.
Fox bought prizes for Connie"s gay little card-parties with the rent money, and retired with a headache immediately after tearfully informing the hara.s.sed breadwinner of the fact. She ironed Connie"s gowns, bullied her little dressmaker, cried and made empty promises to her milliner, cut her old friends, telephoned her husband at six o"clock that, as "the girls" had not gone yet, perhaps he had better have a bite of dinner downtown. She gushed and beamed on Connie"s friends, cultivated those she could reach a.s.siduously, and never dreamed that a great many people were watching her with amus.e.m.e.nt when she worked her way about a room to squeeze herself in next to some social potentate.
She had her reward when the mail brought Constance the coveted dance-cards; when she saw her name in the society columns of the newspapers, and was able to announce carelessly that that lucky girlie of hers was really going to Honolulu with the Cyrus Holmes. Dolly Ripley, the heiress, had taken a sudden fancy to Connie, some two years before Susan met her, and this alone was enough to reward Mrs. Fox for all the privations, snubs and humiliations she had suffered since the years when she curled Connie"s straight hair on a stick, nearly blinded herself tucking and embroidering her little dresses, and finished up the week"s ironing herself so that her one maid could escort Connie to an exclusive little dancing-cla.s.s.
Susan saw Connie now and then, and met the mother and daughter on a certain autumn Sunday when Ella had chaperoned the two younger girls to a luncheon at the Burlingame club-house. They had spent the night before with a friend of Ella"s, whose lovely country home was but a few minutes" walk from the club, and Susan was elated with the glorious conviction that she had added to the gaiety of the party, and that through her even Emily was having a really enjoyable time. She met a great many distinguished persons to-day, the golf and polo players, the great Eastern actress who was the center of a group of adoring males, and was being entertained by the oldest and most capable of dowagers, and Dolly Ripley, a lean, eager, round-shouldered, rowdyish little person, talking as a professional breeder might talk of her dogs and horses, and shadowed by Connie Fox. Susan was so filled with the excitement of the occasion, the beauty of the day, the delightful club and its delightful guests, that she was able to speak to Miss Dolly Ripley quite as if she also had inherited some ten millions of dollars, and owned the most expensive, if not the handsomest, home in the state.