CHAPTER IV

THE FAIRY-LAND CHILDREN

Beth and her aunt came home a little before three. Luncheon in a hotel restaurant, Pompeian red and bronze in coloring, with flowers on every table and ladies at every table, also, whom one could hardly tell from the flowers, and an orchestra playing such music as Beth had never heard, completed the bewilderment of the morning. The little girl returned to her uncle’s house like a small blossom overfull of honey; she had seen so many splendors that she could take in no more.

Mrs. Hodgman followed Mrs. Cortlandt to her sitting-room where Beth had also been taken.

“Mrs. Cortlandt,” the housekeeper began, “I have arranged for a maid for Miss Beth, if you approve. Frieda would be glad to serve the young lady. There is a maid whom I can take on in Frieda’s place, if you are satisfied to promote Frieda to the position of Miss Beth’s maid.”

“Frieda--that is the pleasant girl who serves my breakfast when I take it in my room? Yes, she will do excellently,” approved Mrs. Cortlandt. “Will you kindly have her sent to me at once? Since Miss Beth’s maid is already at hand she may begin her duties now. Thank you, Mrs. Hodgman. I hope the change will not incommode you; it is troublesome to train a new--parlor maid, wasn’t Frieda?”

“Yes, madam, but I am sure that the girl who will replace her comes with an excellent training,” said Mrs. Hodgman. “Frieda shall come to you at once, Mrs. Cortlandt.”

Beth listened half in dismay. What should she do with a maid? Or, rather, what would the maid do to her? Yet, evidently, she was to have one, a whole maid of her own, precisely as if she were the Princess Elizabeth whom she often had played at being, at home in the old-fashioned garden!

Mrs. Cortlandt opened a pile of personal letters which her secretary had laid on her table for this end. Beth was admiring the tiny jeweled blade that her aunt used, when Frieda knocked.

“Ah, Frieda! yes,” said Mrs. Cortlandt. “You are to be my little niece’s new maid. I hope that you will serve her well. If you need instruction in your task go to Anna Mary for advice; she will guide you. Go with Miss Beth to her room now, and help her put on a blue gown which I brought home with me, and which has been sent up-stairs. There are ribbons, shoes, stockings with it, you will find. By the time she has been made ready her cousins will return from their ride, and will not be willing to wait longer to meet her. Come to me, Beth, here, after you are dressed. And, Frieda, there are a good many things coming for Miss Beth, an outfit more appropriate to town than the clothes that she wore in the country. When they are delivered please put them away in her wardrobes, and mark the underclothing with her initials, please. You understand lettering?”

“Yes, madam; I was taught in Germany,” said Frieda.

“Then well taught,” said Mrs. Cortlandt with her smile that won all who served her to serve her well. “Run away now with Frieda, Bethie dear, and come back to me as soon as she has made you from an outdoors girl into a little house-girl.”

Beth went obediently. She was not sure which was her room, but Frieda led the way up-stairs to it directly, and Beth’s heart leaped again as she opened the door upon its beauty, now illumined by the long light of mid-afternoon, and the fire still burning on the hearth.

“Could you sit there, Frieda, and let me sit here while you talk to me?” suggested Beth settling herself into the lowest and loveliest of the willow rockers before the fire.

“You could sit there, Miss Beth, but I certainly couldn’t sit here,” said Frieda. “Even if it would be right--and it wouldn’t--I have to open these boxes and get out what your aunt wants you to wear this afternoon.” And Frieda rapidly began her work.

“Oh, let me see them, Frieda. I saw so many that I don’t know which Aunt Alida took, and I don’t know which of those she took she brought home in the carriage!” cried Beth falling out of her chair in the keenness of her interest. “Don’t you ever sit down and do nothing in New York, Frieda? It’s only because it’s my first day that it rushes so, isn’t it?”

“I can’t say that’s it, Miss Beth,” said Frieda. “If you’d come here from Germany you’d think things rushed all the time.”

“Some day, if ever we can sit down, you’ll tell me about Germany, won’t you please, Frieda? I always thought it must be heavenly to live in a country where storks stood on one leg on the edges of chimneys on straw-covered roofs, as they do in Germany, in my Grimm’s Tales,” cried Beth. “Isn’t that the dearest dress? Don’t you imagine Aunt Alida brought it home with us so I could put it on before my cousins saw me, and so they wouldn’t think I didn’t look nice? Of course I see already that Miss Tappan, who made my winter suit, isn’t quite such a fine, fine dressmaker as she looks where Aunt Rebecca lives--where Miss Tappan and I live, too.”

“Miss Beth,” said Frieda, wisely avoiding the question, “I’ve laid everything out, even your wrapper, and now, if you please, I’ll have to dress you; we haven’t any too much time.”

“All right,” sighed Beth. “Will you tell me how to begin to let you dress me, Frieda? I always dress myself, you know.”

Frieda laughed outright; she was a young and pretty maid, much nearer Beth’s idea of a maid than Anna Mary, whom, Beth reproachfully reminded herself, she had found most kind. But she was glad that Frieda was young and pretty.

“Well, then, Miss Beth,” Frieda instructed her, “first of all, if you will sit on that higher chair, please, I will put on these nice silk stockings and your slippers.”

Beth complied. When they were on she surveyed her slender legs and feet with undisguised admiration. “I never knew they could look like that!” she sighed, remembering the sturdy straightness of the lines of her feet in their old-time coverings.

Swiftly Frieda divested the little girl of the plain underclothing, stitching, buttons and a narrow edge of Hamburg embroidery its only ornaments, which Aunt Rebecca had made. In its place she clothed her in the dainty French garments of Aunt Alida’s buying, tucked, lace-inserted, ruffled, and cut on lines of beauty.

Beth laid her discarded underskirt beside her new one, contrasting them. “Poor Aunt Rebecca!” she said. “But she wouldn’t mind if she understood--but she never, never will! They look exactly like the two aunts who got them for me.”

Frieda was not heeding Beth’s audible reflections. “Now, Miss Beth, your hair,” she said, and Beth, profiting by her experience of the previous night, seated herself before the dressing table. Frieda threw over her shoulders a butterfly garment made of handkerchiefs, apparently, and began to brush Beth’s abundant hair.

“To-morrow, if you please, Miss Beth, you must let me shampoo it till it is like yellow thistle silk,” said Frieda. “This is the best I can do now.”

Frieda’s best was a very good best. Beth stared at herself amazed. Her hair fell in a pretty mass of color around her shoulders. It rippled up from her temples, yet shaded them lightly as it had never done in all its straight-brushed-back existence. A great bow of soft wide ribbon, a plaid of rainbow colors, stood straight up on the top of Beth’s head, like a sort of aureole of fashion.

“Mercy, Frieda! How did you ever do it?” cried Beth, appreciating the extreme glory of the bow that Frieda had tied.

First a white guimpe, so delicate in texture that its wee tucks seemed impossible, then a blue gown over that, bright yet dark, touched here and there with white lace and glimpses of a red that was like the sunset, half melted into gold, and Beth stood before the glass not knowing whether or not to believe her eyes.

The face that blushed back at her was Beth Bristead’s face, in spite of the new and stylish arrangement of the hair, but--it was pretty! It was even very pretty! It had never occurred to Beth before that she was a pretty child, and the discovery overtopped the bliss of owning such a beautiful gown. It was wonderful--all of it, the dear slippers and silken stockings, the pretty gown, but above all the pretty Beth! Being a sweet-natured little soul Beth’s first impulse on making the discovery of her own prettiness was the wholesome impulse of loving gratitude. She felt a great wave of love for Frieda who had dressed her so well, and she worshiped the Aunt Alida who had bought her the treasures which had turned the little brown wren from the brown country house into this brilliant blue bird of paradise, fit for a New York cage. If Aunt Rebecca could have read her heart then all her fears that luxury would spoil little Beth might have been set at rest, for if good fortune makes a person loving and grateful no amount of it can harm her.

“Frieda, Frieda, Frieda!” Beth cried, and threw her arms around her maid, just as she stooped to pick a tiny white thread off the hem of Beth’s skirt.

“It looks beautiful, Miss Beth; it’s no wonder you’re pleased,” said Frieda, discreetly. But she looked pleased herself, and inwardly thanked her stars that she was to serve such an affectionate and unspoiled little lady. “I think you’re ready now, and your aunt will be looking for you, Miss Beth,” Frieda added.

Beth started for the door. “I ought to pick up the room, Frieda,” she said, stopped by the orderly habits in which Aunt Rebecca had trained her.

“That’s partly what I’m for, Miss Beth. It isn’t your work,” said Frieda, beginning it.

“I wouldn’t mind stopping for it, Frieda; I think I’d like to do it; I think I’m scared to go down alone,” said Beth. But she went on her way, none the less.

Her aunt heard Beth hesitating at her sitting-room door before she gently pushed it a little farther open. “Come in, Bethie,” she called. Beth saw her in a silken wrap lying on the couch before her hearth fire.

“Come over here where I can see you, little niece. Will you please touch that button beside the door to turn on the centre lights so that I can see you better?” Mrs. Cortlandt said. “Why, what a fine little bird these new fine feathers have made of you!” she cried starting up in genuine pleasure.

Beth flung herself on her aunt’s shoulder, forgetting fear in her gratitude, responding to the smile in Aunt Alida’s dark eyes.

“Aunt Alida,” she cried, “I’ve got to kiss you! I’m ’most crazy, I’m so happy and I look so nice, and I’ve truly got to kiss you!”

Mrs. Cortlandt laughed as she received Beth’s violent kisses. “Did you think I should object to being kissed?” she asked.

And then there came a hurrying of feet up the padded stairs and three figures burst into the room. Beth straightened herself and looked at them, for she knew that they were her cousins.

She saw a tall girl with dark eyes, more flashing, brilliant eyes than Aunt Alida’s. She wore a riding habit, its skirt caught up slightly, showing russet riding boots. She wore a short coat and a hard hat and carried a stock in her gauntleted hand; the severity of her costume set off the brilliant beauty of her young face. Beside her stood another girl, not much taller than Beth, and fair, like Beth, but she had none of Beth’s rosiness, nor was she as pretty. She, too, wore a riding habit, green, like her sister’s, but with a soft hat, and she carried a whip. Behind the two girls was a boy, short and sturdy, with the elder girl’s dark eyes, and the younger’s fair hair, but the boy’s hair was cut so short that its color hardly mattered. His face was full of mischief that seemed to run over into the room--as it often did, in fact, as Beth was to discover later.

“Children, this is Beth,” said Mrs. Cortlandt. “Here is your own cousin, though you never have seen her before. Beth, this is Natalie, Alys and Dirk.”

Natalie and Alys kissed Beth and murmured a greeting; Dirk shook hands with her so limply that it was surprising when one saw how firm knit and strong his hand was. Then the four stared at one another for a moment of criticism.

Natalie spoke with the advantage of her fifteen years. “Alys and I are going up to get ready for dinner. Won’t you come up to our rooms and chat? We have a new box of chocolates,” she said.

“Yes, Natalie, that’s a good suggestion,” said her mother with an air of relief. “Carry Beth off with you; chocolates sweeten the hardships of getting acquainted. Your uncle will dine at home to-night, Bethie; he is anxious to know his sister’s little girl.”

Dirk disappeared after the fashion of a lively small boy who neither wants girls nor is wanted by them. Natalie tucked Beth’s hand under her arm with her riding stock, and Alys followed them up-stairs.

Natalie led the way to the door just beyond Beth’s room. She opened it, revealing a large chamber, furnished in Tuna mahogany, hung with old rose and dark reds, carpeted with plain velvet carpet in a reddish brown, a curious, splendid room which made a becoming setting for the slender dark girl it sheltered, as Beth dimly perceived without understanding it.

Next to this room, connected with it, was a beautiful green room, furnished in bird’s-eye maple, a green carpet rug on its floor, green and white empire brocade on its walls, green curtains, and a stand of waving ferns in its northern window.

This was Alys’s room, and Beth exclaimed: “Isn’t this a dear room! It looks like ‘By cool Siloam’s shady rill.’”

Natalie and Alys stared; they did not know how large a part in Beth’s education hymns had played. But Alys was pleased; she gave Beth the first smile that she had accorded her. The smile deepened as Beth darted forward, espying on a cushion a plump tiger kitten, who raised a short, cheerful little face that looked smiling, and a pair of large eyes, as Beth buried her fingers in fur that was as fine and soft as chinchilla.

“What a darling!” she cried fervently.

“She’s a perfect angel!” cried Alys thawing fast. “She talks all the time, answers each time we speak to her, and she knows as well as you would what I say when I ask her where her ball is. Poppy, where’s your ball?” she added to prove her words.

The kitten stretched and jumped down. For an instant she poised on her forefeet in descending, and Beth laughed.

“We’re afraid there is something wrong about her; she can’t quite control her hind legs,” Natalie explained the movement. “Poppity-pippity-wum!” she added pettingly.

“M-m-m-m!” cooed the kitten answering, as Alys had foretold that she would do.

Poppy brought out a worsted ball for which she had been hunting under the chairs and triumphantly laid it at Alys’s feet.

“Didn’t I tell you she was an angel?” cried Alys. “We call her Poppy because she pops up so queerly in her back legs. Oh, Poppity-pippity-wum, you blessed Poppy-pip!” She snatched the kitten to her breast and buried kisses in her soft fur.

A maid came in and Natalie spoke to her in French; awestruck Beth knew that it was French because there were French market gardeners near her home.

“My bath is ready, so you must excuse me, Beth,” said Natalie. “Alys must go to get ready for hers, too. We always swim a little after riding. Will you stay here with Poppy? Then you can sit with us while we have our hair done, and we’ll eat chocolates and get acquainted.”

“I’d like to go into my room to write a note to Aunt Rebecca,” said Beth shyly.

“Why, of course. You won’t get another chance to-night,” agreed Natalie. “Run along, little Coz.”

Beth ran. She closed her door and wrote rapidly with a pencil on a pad which she found waiting for her, a pad not like her school pads, but one of the finest paper.

“Dear Aunt Rebecca,” she said. “I am well. I got here very well. Anna Mary is kind; she was a twin, and the other one was called Mary Anna. Aunt Alida is prettier than any picture in all the magazines. She is so kind I love her most to death. Natalie is pretty; Alys is light like me. There is a kitten that is lovely named Poppy because her hind legs sorter pop up when she jumps. I don’t know about Dirk. The house is so beautiful that words could never tell, you couldn’t think what it was like. Fairies never had such a house. I’ve got more lovely clothes than a princess and a maid all my own. Her name is Freedah--I don’t know if that is right spelling. The house is all over servants everywhere. You wouldn’t wonder. Anybody would want to be a servant here. There is an ellyvator like my garnet ring box. My room is blue velvet and wood-fire and silk quilt and comforter--you never saw such a house. My love to Janie and all the girls. I will write them if I can. In New York you can’t write, I guess. My love to Tabby. My love to Ella Lowndes; tell her I have a whole maid to help me, all my own. My love to Miss Tappan. My love to you. I hope you are well. I shall be perfectly good for I ought to be because everybody makes me in a fairy story. Your loving niece, Elizabeth Bristead. P. S. New York is very bright. The cab that took us here is run by something without horses and a man up behind to steer. It is very strange. From Beth.”

Beth hastily put her letter into its envelope, and ran back to Natalie’s room. She found both her cousins in their wrappers, Natalie having her hair arranged, Alys waiting her turn and both eating chocolates. Dirk bounced up behind Beth as she started to go in and made her jump.

“Go away, Dirk; we don’t want you,” cried Natalie.

“Go straight away,” added Alys.

Dirk grinned and entered behind Beth. “I’m going to have some candy, too; I heard what you told Beth,” he said. “And _she_ wants me.” He looked wickedly at Beth, whose face plainly declared her opinion of his intrusion.

“May I direct my letter with ink? I haven’t any. And when does the mail go out?” Beth asked.

Dirk promptly stood on his head. “Whoop-ee!” he shouted. “The mail go out!”

“Dirk!” said Natalie sharply. “We put our letters in the mail boxes, Beth, and we don’t know when they go out; they are taken up every--oh, often; I don’t know when. And you will find ink in my desk over there. Alys, help Beth.”

Alys lazily arose and showed Beth where to find what she wanted. “Célie, prennez cette lettre avec les autres,” she said to the maid. Her French was not equal to Natalie’s, but it made Beth feel quite overcome to find her cousins speaking another tongue.

“Do you love to dance?” asked Alys suddenly.

“I don’t know how,” admitted Beth sadly.

“We’ll teach you,” said Natalie quickly. “Alys, Célie is ready for you now. Take a chocolate, my dear Beth; take a handful. Come with me and help me get into my gown. I’m going to hurry dressing to-night.”

Beth went with Natalie into the adjoining dressing room. She felt like a very little girl. To be sure at home big girls of fifteen seemed older than she, but Natalie was almost a young lady--still she was kind. And Alys seemed worlds away from this little country cousin. While she found herself wishing that Dirk actually was worlds away, he called after her:

“Look out, Beth; Nat keeps mice in her dressing room!” With which pleasant fiction he disappeared, and Beth heard him sliding down the balustrade in the hall with a wild whoop which was like the whoops of the boys at home, whom she and Janie Little always feared.

After a time Natalie was ready for dinner in a crimson cloth gown that made her look “like an Indian princess,” thought Beth vaguely. Alys was dainty in her pale pink. Both girls wore their hair rolled behind their ears and tied in great drooping bows. Their hands were white, with nails like ivory tips. Beth glanced at her own firm little tanned hands, and their round little nails that showed the marks of gardening and climbing. “I’m going to grow them!” she thought, and followed the girls down-stairs.

Mrs. Cortlandt met them. She was all in black lace, with American Beauty roses at her belt. Beth looked up at her aunt’s white shoulders and down at her train.

“Is there a party?” she asked timidly.

“Only ourselves, Bethie. You’re the only party, and you’re such a very little party!” laughed Aunt Alida, tucking the little guest under her arm.

They went down to the library, and from the depths of a great chair arose a tall gentleman in evening clothes; at a glance Beth saw that she looked like him, but she was afraid of him, none the less.

“Jim, here is Bethie,” said Aunt Alida, and Beth found that the tall man was kissing her most tenderly. “My dear, you look like your mother, and I’m much obliged to you,” he said.

Then a solemn person, also in evening clothes, whom Beth had not seen, drew aside the portière.

“Madam, dinner is served,” he said softly.

Mr. Cortlandt bent and put Beth’s hand through his arm. “Allow me to take you out to dinner, Miss Bristead; Dirk, offer your mother your arm,” he said.

Beth was so frightened that for a moment she wanted to run away or cry--both, perhaps. But she looked up sideways into her uncle’s face and caught the twinkle in a pair of blue eyes decidedly like the pair that looked back at her every day in her glass. So she altered her mind, and laughed instead of crying.

Thus with perfect cheerfulness Beth went out to her first formal dinner.