Concerning Belinda. C.J. Brainerd

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СКАЧАТЬ fairly started. She was a plump, sleek woman with an automatic smile and a pneumatic manner.

      "You will all give your car fares to Miss Carewe, young ladies," she purred. "You have your rubbers? That's right. The pavements are damp. Miss Bowers and Miss Somerville, you may lead. Fall in closely, in couples, and be very careful not under any circumstances to become separated from the chaperon. She will report any annoyance you may cause her. I hope you will have a delightful evening."

      The door closed upon her unnatural amiability. Six couples swung into the street, with Belinda at their heels. Out of the grim, inclosing walls, with the cool, moist air in their faces, the lights reflected gayly in the glistening pavements, the cabs and carriages dashing by, the mystery and fascination of a great city clinging around them, and a matinée idol beckoning them, the girls began to find life more cheerful. Even fat, babyish little Kittie Dayton, whose face was swollen and blotted almost beyond human semblance by six hours of intermittent weeping, stopped blowing her nose long enough to squeal delightedly:

      "Oh-e-e! The man kissed the lady in that cab."

      It was with difficulty that Belinda stopped a stampede in the direction of the hansom. This was seeing New York. The melancholy atmosphere of the school was forgotten.

      They giggled in the car. It worried Belinda. Later she learned to bow to the inevitable. The young man who gave Amelia Bowers his seat was sociably inclined; but, on the whole, Amelia behaved very well, though she admitted, later, that she thought he had "most romantic eyes, and a perfectly elegant waistcoat."

      Belinda squirmed on the car. Arrived at the theatre she squirmed still more. The lobby was well filled. It was almost time for the curtain. She hated leading her line down the middle aisle to the fourth row; she hated the smiles and comment that followed them; she loathed being made conspicuous – and her sentiments were not modified, as she followed the last of the girls through the door, by hearing the manager say jocularly to the doorkeeper:

      "My eye! and who's chaperoning the pretty chaperon?"

      There was a balk, a tangle, when the fourth row was reached. The acquaintances between most of the girls dated from the morning of that day, but already each of the group had strong convictions in regard to the girls beside whom she chose to sit, and hours of discussion and debate could not have solved the problem to the satisfaction of all concerned.

      Belinda firmly hustled the protestants into the seats without regard to prejudices, and sat down in the end chair exhausted and rebellious. She detested the Young Person, individually and collectively. She resented being bear leader. She thought longingly of the Lanleyville High School and the home friends, and the fact that New York seethed round the theatre in which she sat afforded her no consolation. She was profoundly indifferent to the popular actor before whom her charges became as dumb, adoring worshippers. In a little while she would have to lead her flock of geese home, and she wished she dared lose them and run away. She felt a sudden sympathy for Kittie Dayton, whose pudgy, swollen face, though now radiant, looked like an unfinished biscuit. Belinda, too, was homesick – deeply, darkly, dismally homesick. Even her sense of humour was swamped. June and the end of her contract loomed but vaguely beyond a foggy waste of months.

      "Isn't he just too perfectly sweet, Miss Carewe?" gurgled Amelia Bowers in her ear.

      Belinda was non-committal.

      "Did you ever meet him on the street?"

      Belinda had never had that rapture.

      "Well, one might, you know," said Amelia hopefully. "Alice Ransom plumped right into Faversham, one day, when she was in New York, and he took off his hat to her and said, 'Beg pardon.' She said she felt perfectly faint. His voice sounded just like it does on the stage, and he had the most fascinating eyes and the sweetest bulldog. Alice said it seemed like Fate, running right into him that way, the first time she went out alone. She walked down Fifth Avenue at that same time every day for a week, but she never met him again."

      The star and his leading lady fell into each other's arms for the final curtain and later were brought out to bow their amiable acknowledgements, with results disastrous to the seams of Amelia's white gloves.

      The crowd rustled to its feet, preened itself, and took lagging flight toward the street. Belinda marshalled her flock and joined the exodus. She would be glad to reach the hall bedroom and shut its door upon a world that was too much with her. She coveted the stolid, tranquil society of the Pyramids. They would watch her cry with the same impenetrable indifference with which they would watch her laugh, but presumably the Garrick Theatre crowd would be impressed if she should burst into floods of tears.

      Drearily she followed the six couples of chattering girls who dropped adjectives and exclamations as they went, and who were quite unable to keep in line, according to the prescribed formula, in the midst of the jostling, hurrying crowd; but Belinda was little concerned by that. As a matter of fact, her thoughts were self-centred. This was her first view of a New York crowd, but she received no impression save that men and women alike looked tired and dissatisfied, though surely they were not all elected to spend the next nine months in a boarding-school.

      The middle aisle emptied her into the lobby; and as she stood there, vaguely conscious that something was incumbent upon her, her wandering glance fell upon a young man across the lobby. Belinda gasped, flushed. The young man's eyes met hers from where he was wedged against the wall. His face, too, lighted into incredulous joy. It was a good-looking face, a gay, boyish face, but browned to a hue that contrasted oddly with the city-bleached skins around him. Perhaps that was why he had attracted attention, and why several heads turned to discover the cause of the sudden illumination. When the owners of the heads saw Belinda they understood and smiled benignantly. All the world loves a lover.

      Belinda was utterly unconscious of the glances, unconscious of anything save that the gods were good.

      Here was Jack – Jack, of all men, dropped into the midst of her gloom. Hilarious memories and cheerful anticipations swarmed into her mind. Jack stood for home, old days, old larks, old irresponsibility. New York disappeared from the map. The Select School for Young Ladies ceased to exist. The young ladies themselves were blotted out.

      Beaming, dimpling, Belinda squeezed a way across the outgoing current. Grinning, radiant, Jack Wendell forced an opening for his square shoulders.

      They met in the whirlpool, and he cleverly hauled her into a high and dry corner.

      "Belinda!"

      "Jack!"

      Everyone near them smiled sympathetically. Belinda's enthusiasm is often misleading, and on this occasion she was unreservedly enthusiastic.

      "Is the Massachusetts in?"

      "Docked yesterday."

      "And you are going to stay?"

      "Several weeks – and you?"

      "All winter."

      Belinda's delight approached effervescence. Jack's face was a luminous harvest moon. Both were oblivious to the fact that he was still holding her hand.

      They talked breathlessly in laughter-punctuated gusts. They went back to the beginning of things and rapidly worked down past the Deluge which separated them, and the subsequent wanderings. They brought their life histories almost up to date, and then, suddenly, Miss Lucilla Ryder entered Belinda's tale.

      "Miss Lucilla Ryder!"

      As she spoke the name she underwent a sudden transformation. Her smiles and dimples vanished, her face lengthened miraculously, СКАЧАТЬ