Ladybird (25 page)

“All right,” said Fraley with a pleased sigh, “only I want to be honest. You see, I don’t know anything about what clothes cost so I can’t judge, but it seems to me my work won’t be worth very much at first, anyway, though I mean to try very hard.”

“You don’t know how much of an asset you are, little Fraley,” smiled Violet Wentworth, looking into the clear eyes and noticing the sweet sincerity and purity that was an open vision to all who looked that way.

Fraley wondered what an asset was, but she did not ask. She kept her eyes busy out of the window, for now they had come to the shopping district and the traffic was jammed.

“Why, it’s just the way God takes us through hard things, isn’t it?” she exclaimed suddenly and then caught herself and flushed. She had not meant to think out loud that way anymore, since she knew the lady was amused by it.

“I mean,” she explained, when she saw the look of question in her companion’s eyes, “I mean the car and the man who drives it. We don’t have to worry about getting across that street or be afraid we’ll be run over, because the car carries us straight through, and the man who drives it is doing all the worrying.”

“You certainly ought to have been a theologian,” said the lady crossly. “Your mind is always running on things like that. But you mustn’t call Burton ‘the man who drives’; you must say, ‘chauffeur.’ You’ll have to remember that because it will mark you as utterly green if you don’t. Burton! Stop here! Yes, the shoes. There’s a place where you can park around on the side street. It’s too crowded here for you to wait. We’ll come around to the usual place.”

The quiet elegance of the shoe shop overawed the child of the wilderness. She followed where she was led and sat down as she was bidden. Violet Wentworth did all the rest.

“Shoes,” she ordered curtly, “for this young lady! She’s not been used to high heels. Too high even on the evening slippers! Make it an easy grade from the low, flat school-shoe type, you know. Her foot has never been cramped.”

Fraley sat and wondered and said very little.

Shoes and shoes they tried on her, now and again asking her if they were comfortable.

Bewildered, the girl had no idea how many or if any shoes had been bought until Mrs. Wentworth said, “I think she had better wear this pair and send the old ones home with the order. You would like to wear the dark blue ones, wouldn’t you, Fraley? They go so well with your dress. They are perfectly comfortable, aren’t they? Yes, you may send the rest up, Mr. Kennard. We are going to a fitting, and these are a nice height of heel for that, don’t you think?”

Fraley did not even have to assent, for they hadn’t noticed her at all, and so she found herself standing in new dark blue kid pumps and wondering if those were really her feet, so trim and pretty and like other people’s feet.

The next store they entered was a lingerie shop, and for half an hour Violet tossed over piles of silk trifles that passed for underwear—little French importations with exquisite hand work expended upon them. Now and then she appealed to Fraley to know which one she liked best of two, and the girl supposed Violet was purchasing all these things for herself. It was not until they reached home that she discovered there were dozens of things being bought for her, but by that time she was a day wiser.

They next drove to an exclusive shop, and the chauffeur was told to return in an hour and a half.

The place was quiet and elegant, and Fraley, who was already worn with the noise and confusion of the city, sank into a chair gladly to wait. She was thinking how nice it would be to get back to the house and read some of those beautiful books, curled up in a big chair with the river outside of her window and the stillness of the house surrounding her. The shop did not look very interesting.

Violet introduced her to a large, imposing woman called Madam who gave her a chair and called her “my dear” and then stood off, studying her. The shop seemed a stupid place, and Fraley was not deeply interested in it. She wondered why they were there until Violet said in a low tone, “This is the gown shop. We are going to see some models.”

Madam went away back across the gray-velvet aisle with mirrors on each side, and presently she returned and talked with her customer about the weather and where she had been during the winter.

Then there was a little stir down the gray-velvet aisle, and a girl no larger than Fraley with a startlingly red mouth and hard black eyes came sauntering toward them in a daring red and black outfit.

The mountain girl watched her come and turned away. She did not like the bold black eyes and the red mouth.

“It’s hardly her type,” said Violet scanning the model carefully. “Very clever cut, of course, but I scarcely think I’d care for it.”

“Well, perhaps,” said Madam, “but it’s a useful little frock for in between, you know.”

Another young thing had entered the gray aisle and was lingering for a signal to come on. Madam gave it, and there arrived a girl in green. She had deep red hair and brown eyes, and Fraley liked her better. But she, too, had that terrible red mouth that looked like a wound.

“That’s not bad,” said Violet. “I’m not sure, but it would do. Of course she’s a different coloring, but green and gold are lovely. You might have that laid aside, and we’ll let her try it on.”

The procession seemed endless and amounted to little or nothing so far as a fashion show was concerned to the girl from the mountain. She continued to look at the faces of the models and to regret their red, red mouths. How did all these girls of New York get such red lips? She had noticed it just the least bit in her beloved Violet’s lips, too, this morning. It must be something in the climate or the water. Perhaps her own would grow that way after a time, but she did not like it.

When a number of street dresses had been selected for further consideration and several afternoon outfits added to their number, the various models returned, garbed now in evening wear. The first wore an evening cloak of gold cloth trimmed with ermine, which when removed revealed an elaborate affair of turquoise malines cut in myriads of points and standing out like blue spray around the fragile ankles of the slim thing that wore it, but scarcely draping the upper part of her anatomy at all. It was held in place by a garland of silver roses over one shoulder.

“That! Now, that would go with her eyes,” said Violet, interested. “Don’t you like that, Fraley dear?”

Fraley responded instantly to the “dear” and turned her smile toward the matter in hand.

“It’s a pretty color,” she said, “but there isn’t any top to it. It looks as if those roses were going to break and let it all down.”

The models looked at one another and grinned contemptuously. The Madam said, “Oh, my dear!” and laughed affectedly; then turning to Violet Wentworth, she said, “She’s witty, isn’t she? A clever remark!”

Fraley could see that her Violet was vexed with her, and she felt mortified, though she did not know exactly what she had done.

“Do you wear a coat over it?” she asked in a low voice, but Violet did not answer.

“I think,” she said crossly, “that it’s getting late, and we will not bother with evening dresses this morning. We’ll just let her try on the green dress and possibly that little brown one.”

Then Madam rose suavely to the occasion. A customer like this was not to be lost if anything could keep her.

“I think,” said she, “if you will just have patience for one more, I would like to try something. There is a dress it has just occurred to me, and pardon me, but perhaps the young lady is right. The ingénue. That is the type. I have a lovely thing here in white velvet I would just like you to see ”

There was not a model in that establishment that had the makeup for wearing that white velvet, but Madame chose her most demure maiden and told her to wash off the rouge and hurry. By all means, hurry.

In the end, Violet bought the white velvet, of course.

Fraley, robed in it, looked like a saint from some old castle retreat. Its fabric fell from the shoulders and came around to tie in front in long sashlike ends, clasped with a knot of yellow gold.

“There is jewelry to go with this.” And Madam slung a rope of gold around the girl’s neck, clasped bracelets on her arms, and brought out earrings.

Fraley shrank back when she saw what Madam was intending to do to her and put her hands to her ears.

“Please, no,” she said and looked pleadingly toward her lady.

“She is right,” said Violet. “They do not belong to the type. A saint wouldn’t wear long dangling things in her ears. And you may keep the chain and armlets, too. I think pearls would be better. They are too noisy. She needs something quieter. The clasp is good perhaps. I’ll take the dress.”

Fraley looked at herself in the mirrors dubiously. She was not sure of herself. But it was better than some. The fabric covered her arms partially, at least, and the neck was modest in its cut, so she said nothing.

A blue taffeta was next forthcoming, with tiny sweetheart rosebuds on long wisps of silver cord hanging from a rosette of rosebuds at the little round waist; a full long skirt of bound scallops drawn into the round waist gave it a childish charm. Fraley could see that her lady liked it, so when asked if she liked it, she said, “All but the arms. I’d like some sleeves.”

The Madam laughed.

“It’s an evening dress, you know, Fraley,” said Violet. “Everybody wears them that way. You mustn’t be silly!”

“Wait!” said Madam seeing another sale in the offing. “I’ve an idea. Clotilde, go bring that lace collar, the very thing. It’s on that new dress that just came in.”

Clotilde brought the lace, fine as a cobweb, and Madam flung it over Fraley’s head and adjusted it.

“The very thing!” she cried. “She’s a clever girl. She knows what she needs to bring out her best style.”

The lace hung in soft cobwebby folds from the round neck, deep as the waistline in the back, a little shorter in front, but covering the sweet round arms to the elbow. Violet was vexed with her charge, but she couldn’t deny that the little mountain girl, dressed thus, looked very sweet and modest and that the lace brought out the charm by which she had been attracted at the first.

So they bought the blue taffeta.

“But I can’t work in any of those,” said Fraley when at last they left the place.

“No, of course not, you silly! Did you think we were buying working clothes? We’ll get some plain tailored things and some sports clothes for that. We’re going to lunch now, but after lunch we’ll go to some of the big department stores and look around. There are several more of these little exclusive shops, too, where you can pick up really original clothes quite reasonably if you know how to look for them. I want to look around and send some more things home for you to try on. There’s nothing like trying a garment in the environment in which it is to be worn to find out its defects and its good points. Of course if I find something better than these I can return them. But I’m sure the white velvet is good, and the blue taffeta is darling! We must keep that in any event.”

Fraley got back into the car feeling far more worn than from a day of her pilgrimage. Such a lot of work just to get something to put on! There seemed to be a great many pretty things in the shop windows they passed. Why wouldn’t any of them do? But she said nothing more. She saw that Violet was happy in this thing that she was doing.

After a light but costly lunch of salads and ices, they went on their way again, hunting more clothes.

“I don’t see when I can possibly use all these,” said Fraley wearily when at last they were in the car on their way back home. “I can’t ever wear out so many.”

“You don’t wear them out, child,” said Violet complacently. “You give them away when you are tired of them or sell them. Many people sell them, but it’s a lot of bother, and you have to give a maid things, anyway, or she gets dissatisfied.”

Safe in her quiet room that night, with Violet entertaining callers downstairs, Fraley pondered on the strange ways of this new world into which she had come.

T
he days that followed were full of shopping, and while she gradually grew more intelligent in the matter of choosing garments suitable for the occasions in which she was supposed to wear them and acquired a certain simplicity in taste that was surprising, considering the contrast in her present circumstances from those that had surrounded her in her childhood, still Fraley was more or less bored with it all. She wanted to be doing so many other things in this wonderful city.

There was the river with its endless procession of boats going back and forth. She wanted to ride on all those boats. She wanted to climb the palisades and find out how far she could see from the top. She wanted to tramp the length of the river and then cross over and tramp back. Sometimes she wanted to get out and away from all the strange, cramping, hindering clutter of sights and sounds into her own native wilderness and beauty.

Then there were the great buildings that she gradually learned were of historic interest. She knew very little of world history or even of the history of her own country, and when she once discovered books of history, she read with eager appetite. The local landmarks and great buildings that commemorated some discovery or victory or happening took on new interest and seemed to stand out from their neighbors on the street almost as if they had been painted a different noble color.

But gradually the two large closets connected with her lovely room began to be filled with charming clothes—for morning and afternoon and evening, for hot, for cold, and for medium weather—and she began to hope that the days of toil in the shops were almost over.

To say she had not enjoyed it would be wrong, because she loved beauty. But to get it entirely out of its relation to other things in life wearied her. After the first few days, when she entered a shop, her quick eyes would rove around and search out one or two distinguished garments or articles from all the other commonplace ones, and Violet soon learned that she could trust her selection almost every time. Simplicity of line and color were her keynote, and she went unerringly to the few things in each shop that bore those distinctions.