The Lady Doc - Caroline Lockhart (ebook reader computer .txt) 📗

less they is of it. You're thinkin' of a masquerade, maybe. Personally myself," declared Mrs. Jackson modestly, "I don't aim to expose my shoulder blades for nobody—not for nobody."

"I'd do it if I was you," replied Mrs. Tutts significantly.

"Why, if you was me?" inquired Mrs. Jackson, biting guilelessly.

"Because"—Mrs. Tutts backed out of reach.—"they's a law agin' carryin' concealed weapons."

Mrs. Tutts did not tarry to complete the drying of her hair, for Mrs. Jackson had succeeded in wrenching a paling from the fence and was fumbling at the catch on the gate.

The dining-room of the Terriberry House was a dazzling sight to the arriving guests, who were impressed to momentary speechlessness by such evidences of wealth and elegance as real carnations and smilax and a real orchestra imported from the nearest large town on the main line. The sight which held their eyes longest, however, was a large glass bowl on a table in an anteroom, beside which, self-conscious but splendid in new evening clothes, stood Mr. Symes urging an unknown but palatable beverage hospitably upon each arrival.

"This is cert'nly a swell affair," they confided to each other in whispers behind the back of their hands after the first formal greetings. "Trust Andy P. for doin' things right."

They frankly stared at each other in unaccustomed garb and sometimes as frankly laughed.

"Gosh!" said Mr. Terriberry as he sniffed the pungent atmosphere due to the odor of camphor emanating from clothing which had lain in the bottom of trunks since the wearers had "wagoned it" in from Iowa or Nebraska, "looks like you might call this here function a moth ball."

Mr. Terriberry himself gave distinction to the gathering by appearing in a dinner jacket, borrowed from the tailor, and his pearl gray wedding trousers, preserved sentimentally by Mrs. Terriberry.

Mr. Abe Tutts, in a frock coat of minstrel-like cut and plum-colored trousers of shiny diagonal cloth, claimed his share of public attention. For the sake of that peace which he had come to prize highly, Mr. Tutts had consented to make a "dude" of himself.

Mr. Percy Parrott appeared once more in the dinner clothes which upon a previous occasion had given Crowheart its first sight of the habiliment of polite society. If their exceeding snugness had caused him discomfiture then his present sensations were nothing less than anguish. His collar was too high, his collar-band too tight, the arm-holes of his jacket checked his circulation, and his waistcoat interfered with the normal action of his diaphragm, while Mr. Parrott firmly refused to sit out dances for reasons of his own. It was apparent too that he selected partners only for such numbers on the programme as called for steps of a sliding or gliding nature, for Mr. Parrott had the timid caution of an imaginative mind. Following him with anxious eyes was Mrs. Parrott looking like an India famine sufferer décolleté.

From the bottom of that mysterious wardrobe trunk, which resembled the widow's cruse in that it seemed to have no limitations, Mrs. Abe Tutts had resurrected an aigrette which sprouted from a knob of hair tightly twisted on the top of her head. As the evening advanced and the exercise of the dance loosened Mrs. Tutts's simple coiffure, the aigrette slipped forward until that lady resembled nothing so much as a sportive unicorn.

Mrs. Terriberry was unique and also warm in a long pink boa of curled chicken feathers which she kept wound closely about her neck.

The red and feverish appearance of Mrs. Alva Jackson's eyelids was easily accounted for by the numberless French knots on her new peach-blow silk, but she felt more than repaid for so small a matter as strained eyes by the look of astonishment and envy which she surprised from Mrs. Abe Tutts, who had exhausted her ingenuity in trying to discover what she meant to wear.

Mrs. "Ed" Ricketts in black jet and sequins, décolleté, en train, leaning on the arm of her husband, who was attired in a pair of copper-riveted overalls, new and neat, was as noticeable a figure as any lady present.

Mrs. Ricketts's French creation was a souvenir of a brief but memorable period in the history of the Ricketts family.

A few years previous Mr. Ricketts had washed $15,000 from a placer claim in an adjoining State and started at once for Europe to spend it, meaning to wash $15,000 more upon his return. In his absence some one washed it for him. When he came back with a wide knowledge of Parisian cafés, a carved bedstead, two four-foot candelabra and six trunks filled with Mrs. Ricketts's gowns, but no cash, it was a shock to learn that financially he was nil. After months of endeavor in other lines there seemed no alternative but to light his four-foot candelabra and die of starvation in his carved bedstead, or herd sheep, so he wisely decided upon the latter. Mrs. Ricketts adapted herself to the situation and made petticoats of her court trains and drove the sheep-wagon décolleté, so Crowheart was more or less accustomed to Mrs. Ricketts in silk and satin.

Dr. Harpe did not come down until the evening was well along, but the delay produced the effect she intended. As she appeared, fresh and cool with her hair in perfect order, at the end of a number which left the dancers red and dishevelled, she caused a sensation that could not well have been otherwise than flattering. Crowheart stared in candid amazement and admiration.

Her sheer, white gown fell from sloping, well powdered shoulders and its filminess softened wonderfully the lines which were beginning to harden her face. She had dressed with the eagerness of a débutante, and her eyes were luminous, her cheeks delicately flushed with the excitement of it and with happiness at the visible impression she was making.

Dr. Harpe could, upon occasions, assume an air which gave her a certain distinction of carriage and manner which was the direct antithesis of the careless, swaggering, unfeminine creature that Crowheart knew, and as she now came slowly into the ballroom it is little wonder that a buzz went round after the first flattering silence of astonishment, for even a stranger would have singled her out at a glance from the perspiring female crudities upon the floor.

She looked younger by years and with that unexpected winsomeness which was her charm. The murmur of approval was a tribute to her femininity that was music in her ears. The night promised to be one of triumph which she intended to enjoy to the utmost, but to her it ensured more than that, for Ogden Van Lennop was there, as she had seen in one swift glance, and it meant, perhaps, her "chance."

For reasons of his own Van Lennop finally decided to accept the invitation which at first thought he fully intended to refuse. He figured that he had time to telegraph for his clothes, and this he did with the result that Crowheart stared as hard almost at him as at Dr. Harpe's amazing transformation. The reserved, unapproachable stranger in worn corduroys, who had come to be tacitly recognized as an object of suspicion, was not readily reconciled with this suave, self-possessed young man in clothes which they felt intuitively were correct in every detail. He moved among them with a savoir-faire which was new to Crowheart, talking easily and with flattering deference to this neglected lady and that, agreeable to a point which left them animated and coquettish. He danced with Mrs. Terriberry, he escorted Mrs. Tutts to the punch bowl, he threw Mrs. Jackson's scarf about her shoulders with a gallantry that turned Jackson green, a neat compliment sent Mrs. Percy Parrott off in a series of the hysterical shrieks which always followed when Mrs. Parrott found herself at a loss for words. Long before Dr. Harpe's appearance it had begun to dawn upon Crowheart that in holding aloof in unfriendly suspicion the loss had been theirs, for it was being borne in even upon their ignorance that Van Lennop's sphere was one in which they did not "belong."

Dr. Harpe quickly demonstrated that she was easily the best dancer in the room, and there was no dearth of partners after the first awe of her had worn off, but her satisfaction in her night of triumph was not complete until Van Lennop's name was upon her programme.

Essie Tisdale, busy elsewhere, had her first glimpse of the ballroom where Van Lennop claimed his dance. She grew white even to her lips, and her knees shook unaccountably beneath her as she watched Dr. Harpe glide the length of the room in Van Lennop's arms. The momentary pain she felt in her heart had the poignancy of an actual stab. It was so—so unexpected; he had so unequivocally ranged himself upon her side, he had seen so plainly Dr. Harpe's illy-concealed venom and resented it in his quiet way, as she had thought, that this seemed like disloyalty, and in the first shock of bewilderment and pain Essie Tisdale was conscious only that the one person in all the world upon whom she had felt she could count was being taken from her.

Van Lennop had told her of his invitation in amusement and later had remarked carelessly that he might accept, but apparently had given it no further thought. Even in her unhappiness the girl was fair to her merciless enemy. She looked well—far, far more attractive than Essie would have believed possible, softer, more feminine and—more dangerous. Van Lennop was human; and, after all, as she was forced to recognize more and more fully, she was only the pretty biscuit-shooter of the Terriberry House. Essie Tisdale pushed the swinging doors from her with a shaking hand and managed somehow to get back into the kitchen where, as she thought, with a strange, new bitterness, she belonged.

Van Lennop did not leave Dr. Harpe when the waltz was done, but seated himself beside her, first parting the curtain that she might get the air and showing a solicitude for her comfort so different from the cold, impersonal courtesy of months that her heart beat high with triumph. Verily, this propitious beginning was all she needed and, she told herself again, was all she asked. While she believed in herself and her personal charm when she chose to exercise it, Van Lennop's tacit recognition of it brightened her eyes and softened her face into smiling curves of happiness.

Van Lennop toyed with her fan and talked idly of impersonal things, but there was a veiled look of curiosity in his eyes, a kind of puzzled wonder each time that they rested upon her face. As he covertly studied her altered expression and manner, strongly conscious of the different atmosphere which she created, there rose persistently in his mind Stevenson's story of the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He could not conceive a more striking example of dual personality or double consciousness than Dr. Harpe now presented. There was a girlish shyness in her fluttering glance, honesty in the depths of her limpid hazel eyes, while her white, unmarred forehead suggested the serenity of a good woman, and Van Lennop was dimly conscious that for some undefined reason he never had thought of her as that. She had personal magnetism—that he had conceded from the first, for invariably he had found himself sensible of her presence even when disliking her the most. To-night he was more strongly aware of it than ever.

"You are enjoying the evening?"

"Isn't that apparent?" A twinkle shone for a moment in his eyes. "And you?" adding quickly, "An unnecessary question—your face is the answer."

She laughed lightly.

"It doesn't belie me, for I like this—immensely. Flossying up occasionally helps me keep my self-respect. You didn't expect to find this sort of thing out here, did you?"

He looked at her oddly, not sure that she was serious. Was it possible