CHAPTER VII

PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS

The next morning Beth opened her eyes upon a chill gray world. She jumped out of bed and into her cuddly bedroom slippers and drew aside her window curtains. The asphalt pavement seemed to have spread out and up over the whole sky; air, clouds, people and city walls looked of a piece and a color with the hard iron-gray road, giving the avenue the effect of an asphalt tube, bottom, sides and top alike. Snowflakes drifted through the air as if they did not half like it and found it too bleak to call down their comrades to make a cheerful snow-storm.

Beth remembered that it was Monday morning and that Aunt Rebecca and Ella Lowndes had deep-seated objections to bad weather on washing day, “because it made the whole week crooked.” She hoped that the sun was shining in Massachusetts, and her heart leaped joyously as she realized that she was in fairy-land-come-true, where there were no washing days with their hurried, light dinners, but where the sun always shone, no matter what was the weather. Her feet in their fleecy blue slippers danced a few steps until the lavish blue satin bows on the slippers waved blithely, and she hurried to begin dressing, meaning to surprise Frieda when she came by being nearly ready.

There was to be a holiday from lessons for the Cortlandt children because it was Thanksgiving week. Alys said “that was a good way to make sure they were thankful.”

After breakfast Beth found herself alone, and she wandered into the conservatory. Entering it was to leave November far behind, to breathe the warm, soft dampness of the southern midsummer. Beth closed the door behind her and stood still, delicately and ecstatically sniffing the fragrant air.

“It’s just like a hymn,” said Beth, folding her hands with a sense of reverence and lifting her happy little face higher as she spoke aloud after the fashion of her solitary play days. “It’s like:

“‘What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle, Though every prospect pleases, And only man is vile’--

Mercy, no! It isn’t like that last part one bit, for Uncle Jim isn’t any more vile than--than nothing at all--than those white carnations over there! I love him with all my heart and soul! I guess it’s more like:

“‘And Sharon waves, in solemn praise Her silent groves of palm,’

because there are whole rows of palms over there. Well, at any rate, I just wish Janie Little could smell these flowers. Janie loves nice smells so! She thinks smelling a peppermint stick is ’most as good as sucking it. I don’t, but I’d rather smell all these flowers mixed up than pick them. And those birds! I wonder who feeds them.”

“I do, my dear,” said a voice, and Beth faced about with a jump to see Mrs. Hodgman.

“Do you take care of all of them? Good-morning, Mrs. Hodgman,” said Beth.

The housekeeper laughed. “Good-morning, Beth,” she said. “I have one of the maids, or sometimes the gardener here to help me take down the cages, but I give the little creatures their baths and food--it’s such a pleasure to do it, and they all know me.”

She whistled a low note and the canaries nearest her, of the fifty that hung in the conservatory, fluttered to the bars of their cages and answered her, with their heads inquiringly tilted to see what Mrs. Hodgman had for them.

“Oh, I should think it would be a pleasure!” cried Beth rapturously. “It makes you feel as if you would write poetry to be in this warm, soft, flowery place with all those birds hopping and singing, doesn’t it? I feel as if poetry would just burst right out--only it doesn’t! Do you call the man who grows flowers in a greenhouse a gardener? I was wondering what you would call him.”

“The man who has charge of this conservatory is the gardener transferred from Mr. Cortlandt’s country house, otherwise we might call him the florist,” said Mrs. Hodgman. “Now, my dear, I must leave you, for Mrs. Cortlandt gives a small dinner to-night, and I have much to look after this morning.”

“Do you think I may stay here a while, all alone with the birds, and would you mind not telling any one I was here? Because I should like very much to play something. It would be that I was a kind of enchantress who could turn a bare day like this into a summer day on a magic island, and all these birds and flowers would be under the spell, obey me, you see, and I’d play they all knew me and were bright and beautiful--as they truly are--but nobody could see them, or get on the island unless I touched them with my wand, and I never touched any one unless they had done something lovely and kind to earn the touch,” explained Beth, feeling that she owed Mrs. Hodgman the explanation if she asked to be left alone by her. “I could play it better if I knew no one knew where I was; it makes it more like a secret, invisible island.”

“Bless you, little Beth, you may stay here as long as you like, and play all the pretty fancies you can fashion,” said Mrs. Hodgman heartily, kissing the round, soft cheek turned up to her. Then she hurried away, leaving Beth to a glorious kingdom of fact and fancy.

This was why no one could tell Beth’s Aunt Alida where the little girl was when she wanted her an hour later, for Mrs. Hodgman had gone out and nobody else had seen her. The household had begun to get excited when Mrs. Cortlandt remembered that nobody had looked in the conservatory for Beth, and she hurried down herself to try this last hope of finding the child in the house.

As she opened the door Beth’s happy face met her eyes, flushed with the warmth of the conservatory and her interest in her fascinating game. She looked so rapt that Mrs. Cortlandt forgot that she had been anxious about her and cried out:

“Why, you funny little Bethie! What are you doing here by your serene self, and why do you look as if you were floating on little pink clouds, child?”

“I’ve been having such a lovely time, Aunt Alida!” said Beth, coming down to facts by an effort. “I’ve been playing this was a magic island. It’s wonderful to play things right in the middle of things more fairy than your play is! To have all these birds and flowers true when it’s so cold and snowy! Aunt Alida, your real fairy-land is nicer than book fairy-land!”

“Dear little girl, the best of all is to have the eyes that see fairy-land anywhere,” said Aunt Alida, kissing Beth just as Mrs. Hodgman had kissed her.

Beth had never been kissed in all her life as much as she had been since she had come to New York, Aunt Rebecca not being prone to kisses, but she liked it very much and responded with a warmth that showed she was learning how to show the love that filled her heart.

“I’ve been looking for you, Beth,” Aunt Alida said, “because we have important matters to decide, you and I. You know that our costume party is almost beginning--Thursday is Thanksgiving day--and we have nothing ready for you to wear. I think I shall make you into nothing more alarming than a little Puritan maiden, Bethie. The kerchief and cap will suit your serious little face. Will it also suit your serious little taste, dear?”

Beth laughed. “I don’t know what it will be like, Aunt Alida, but you know what’s nice for me. I’m afraid to go to your party, Aunt Alida; I’m afraid of people I don’t know.”

“Nonsense, Beth! You will know these boys and girls when you’ve met them, so who will there be to fear? Alys is to wear a stiff brocade, copied after an old portrait of a Cortlandt of the early 1700’s; we think Alys will rather suit the stiff old gown. And--here’s a secret, Beth! Natalie is to be a young and pretty witch, all in crimson, with a black bodice. And we are going to have a dance which Natalie is to lead alone, all the others following her. The dance will represent the hunting of a witch in the foolish, cruel old days. Do you think that is a fine idea, little niece? I’m proud of it, for it is my own.”

“Oh, yes,” breathed Beth, bewildered but impressed.

“Then come along, Bethie, and try on your costume,” cried Aunt Alida triumphantly. “I ordered it several days ago and the dressmaker has sent a woman to try it on; she is waiting in your room. You can’t imagine what fun it is to have three big-little girls to gown for a costume party! It’s like having one’s dolls come back a thousand times nicer than they used to be.”

She tucked Beth’s hand under her arm and hurried her to the elevator and up to her room. A woman arose as they entered, holding in her hands a soft gray-blue silken gown, straight and full as to skirt, long and plain as to waist, with delicate muslin sleeves appearing under the silken ones, and a soft muslin kerchief swinging from its shoulders, ready to be crossed over Beth’s palpitating heart. Surely she had been mistaken in thinking this a dull, dreary day, Beth said to herself, and surely the land of magic was not imaginary, nor bounded by the glass walls of the conservatory!

“Hallo, Priscilla!” called a gay voice, and Beth turned to see Natalie’s eyes dancing at her from out the folds of the portière between her cousin’s dressing room and her own. “You can’t see me, but I can see you!” laughed Natalie. “You’re not to see me until the great day--you dear little Priscilla! You’re too sweet to be real. Bethie, I’d come and hug you and find out if you were real, only I can’t without showing you my gown.”

“I’m real,” said Beth. “I look like a picture in the glass, but pictures can’t curtsey, Natalie. Look!” She took her soft gown on each side between a thumb and forefinger and curtsied solemnly and low. Her face was all rosy pink and her eyes shining with delight. “If only Aunt Rebecca could see me!” she sighed. “She loves our Puritan ancestors so, and she’d never believe how I look.”

“She shall see you!” cried Aunt Alida. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Bethie. We’ll have a miniature of you painted on ivory, just as you look this moment, and we’ll send it to your Aunt Rebecca for Christmas! No photograph could do justice to those soft tints.”

“Painted? Of me?” gasped Beth. “Aunt Rebecca has a miniature; she says it’s her grandfather Bowen’s second wife; she was a Southerner. It’s perfectly lovely. Aunt Alida, I’ll have to stop talking to you, because I can’t say new things when you do new things! Only I’m most sure Aunt Rebecca will say it’s ministering to my vanity to have my picture painted; she always was afraid Miss Tappan would make me vain if she trimmed my dresses much--she always told her not to minister to my vanity. But Miss Tappan doesn’t know how to make people look fine enough to be really vain--you do, Aunt Alida! Still, I don’t feel spoiled; I just feel--happy!”

Once more Aunt Alida kissed Beth, and the little girl felt sure that the dressmaker’s woman gave her hair a slight caress as she took off the lovable Puritan gown to which Beth had lost her heart completely.

On the great night of what Beth liked to call in her thoughts “her first ball,” Thanksgiving night, Beth stood before the mirror in her beautiful blue room while Frieda fastened the silvery blue gown that fell to Beth’s slippered feet, and laid over her shoulders the soft white fichu, and fastened on her flowing hair the tiny lace cap that added the last touch and turned Beth into something between her own ancestress and a great doll.

“Oh, oh, oh!” gasped Beth. “I don’t see how they ever let the Puritans leave England if they wore such things! Isn’t it the dearest, be-eau-ti-fulest gown, Frieda? Come in,” she added in reply to a knock, and Anna Mary presented herself in the doorway.

“Mrs. Cortlandt sent me up to make sure everything was as it should be,” she said. “Frieda, have you that bit of a cap fastened strong? With Miss Beth’s hair flyin’ like the corn silk that bit of a fairy gossamer thing will get away from it like a cobweb on the grass of a May morning. Just a taste more of fold in that lace fish-u,” added Anna Mary bringing the lace closer around Beth’s round throat and pronouncing the syllables carefully. “What do you represent now, Miss Beth? It looks ancient.”

“I’m Priscilla Alden,” said Beth proudly. “I’ll tell you,” she went on as Anna Mary knelt to sew a little tuck under the broad tuck of Beth’s skirt in a spot where it was too long. “Priscilla was so lovely that Captain Miles Standish loved her, but he didn’t dare say so, so he sent John Alden--he was a nice young man near Priscilla’s age--to ask her to marry him, but Priscilla saw John liked her himself, so she asked him why he didn’t ‘speak for yourself, John,’ and I suppose he did, because they were married.”

“Now it hangs straight,” said Anna Mary, bending down to bite off her thread and coming up so purple in the face that Beth felt apologetic. “And that’s a foolish story, Miss Beth, if you don’t mind my sayin’ so. There’s no captain I’ve ever seen at home in Ireland--and I’ve seen plenty--would be sendin’ a boy to do his wooin’ for him. Let me look how Frieda’s got it in the back, that fish-u.”

“It’s a lovely story, Anna Mary; I must have told it bad---- Oh, oh, oh, Natalie! Just look at Natalie!” screamed Beth, forgetting all about the Pilgrim lovers as Natalie appeared in the doorway, holding back the portière. All in crimson and black was Natalie, short skirt, high heeled shoes, pointed hat, black and crimson, with a crimson satin cloak floating from one shoulder. She was so brilliant of color, so radiantly handsome that the two maids shared Beth’s enthusiasm.

“Sure they never hung such witches, Miss Natalie!” cried Anna Mary.

Alys followed her sister. Beth and the maids were not able to appreciate the perfection of her copy of an old portrait in brocades and laces, still they saw that Alys’s gown was most beautiful. But Natalie’s glorious dark beauty in the witch costume of shining red silk swept everything before it.

“We must hurry down, if you’re ready, little cousin,” said Natalie, and Beth found herself descending to the lower floor in the small elevator in the wonderful company of a great lady of the seventeenth century and such a witch as Anna Mary truly said had never been hung on Boston Common.

Aunt Alida came to meet them. “You dear, satisfactory trio!” she cried. “If you’ll have as good a time as you look--dear me! That’s a queer sentence! However, I mean I’ll be delighted if you are as happy as you are nice to look at, little daughters and niece. Jim, Jim, do come here and see our Court Lady, our Priscilla--and our witch.”

Beth caught the slight emphasis that Aunt Alida put on the last three words, and hoped that Alys would not notice it. Uncle Jim beamed on them, all three; it seemed to Beth that Uncle Jim cared more for the frolic than for his elder daughter’s beauty. “There’s Dirk!” cried Beth. There _was_ Dirk in doublet, boots and a sword.

“What are you?” asked Beth eagerly.

“I’m a fool to let ’em get me such togs,” growled Dirk. “Mama says I’m Miles Standish. Search me! I don’t know what I look like! Say, though, Beth, the sword’s decent, ain’t it?”

“You look fine, Dirk,” cried Beth, and Dirk could not detect mockery in her honest eyes.

No one could hear what they said so the boy unbent a little to her sweetness. “You’re a peach,” he said earnestly. “You look like one of the kids they take out in the mall, in that long dress and baby cap. But you’re out of sight, all right. I guess I’ll dance with you, ’cause I’ve got to dance with somebody and you’re the best there is.”

“Yes; I’d rather dance with you,” agreed Beth “When are they coming?”

“Who? The rest of the show? Some of ’em are here now, getting their things off, and----”

“Oh, there’s the music!” cried Beth, as the small orchestra of strings began to play in the music room.

“Sure. They’ll put ’em in the ballroom when the time comes,” said Dirk, wondering to see the rapture in Beth’s eyes.

After that Beth hardly knew what happened. She floated on the lovely music through an enchanted region, into which there began to come quaint and beautiful figures, some of them tall and nearly grown up, like Natalie, some of them midway, like Alys, some of them small like herself; figures in strange, picture garments that made them seem unreal, even when they were introduced to her by her cousins and she found herself dancing with them. Because it was a dream and she was not really Beth Bristead!

Beth was not shy and afraid as she had expected to be. She danced down and around the great ballroom, carried along by that fairy music, so happy that there was no room for fear. Never had she heard such music, trod such a slippery floor, reflecting hundreds of lights, making the space under her feet as brilliant as the high ceiling. She could not be afraid of the children whom she met in fairy-land! So Beth smiled blissfully at them all and answered happily when they spoke to her, feeling as if these strangers in old-time costume were all old friends.

She had no idea of how proudly, with what pleasure her aunt and uncle watched her, nor that Natalie and Alys had to acknowledge many kind speeches made by the older girls about their pretty little cousin. She did not know that Dirk’s gloom was increasing; she hardly knew that she was happy, because she was so full of happiness that there was not room left for knowing it. A blissful little Beth, she danced through an evening of hours which she had never before sat up to see, floating through fairy-land on the wings of fairy music.

Dirk looked sullen and cross when he came to take Beth to supper, but Beth did not see it.

“Oh, Dirk,” she sighed, “isn’t it lovely, lovely! There’s a book at home, an old history all full of pictures, and it’s just as if they had come to life! Yet I think it’s more as if the garden had come alive. And the music! I feel as if I was a little pink cloud! You know; the kind that is so fluffy and looks so happy when it blows along in the sunset.”

“Well, I’m glad you like it!” growled Dirk disgustedly. “If ever you catch me togging out like this again! It’s hotter’n fury in this double-thing-doublet! And even the sword bothers the life out of me. If I was up in the gym and had some of the fellers I could get some good out of this sword. Come on, Beth; we’ll have a supper anyhow that’ll be big enough to bust this old doublet--wish ’twould!”

“Oh, Dirk; I thought everybody was having such a lovely time; I’m so sorry! But you will have a good time when we dance the dance that Natalie leads, the one that means chasing the witch, won’t you?” cried Beth falling into line with her discontented cousin for the supper march.

“Not on your life!” returned Dirk glumly.

In the supper room Beth forgot Dirk as soon as he had gone to get her refreshments, for here was another realm of enchantments. There were clear soups in fairy cups, cold turkey, salads, dear little triangles enclosing turkey or lettuce; a sort of unearthly delicate bread, cakes such as no mere mortal could have made, of which Ella Lowndes would never dare to dream on her baking day, little cakes iced in all colors, flavored by fairies with unknown, haunting flavors. There were ices in the form of little turkeys, as a reminder of the day, and chocolate with whipped cream on its surface, served in cups that were surely flowers changed by enchantment into porcelain. In the middle of the table stood a mammoth turkey and when everybody had had all and more than they could possibly eat Natalie, as the witch, was called upon to cast a spell upon him and make him give up his treasures.

So Natalie thrice waved her witch’s stick around his head, and the mammoth turkey, by some secret magic, spread his wings and showered upon the table bonbons, snapping mottoes, little flags and candies that looked like cranberries, but which proved to be something beyond and above the flavor of any candy that Beth had ever tasted.

Then the music called “the Pilgrims and Strangers,” as Uncle Jim dubbed his young guests in their ancient gowns, back to the dance. Beth went gladly, delicious though the feast had been. Never in her life before had she danced except around a crowded parlor at home with one of the little girls as partner while another played for their dancing tingling tunes with an unvaried bass. This vast room, ice-smooth floor, these throbbing violins, ’cellos, and harps--ah, that made dancing another matter!

“Happy, Bethie?” asked Aunt Alida, detaining Beth for an instant as she passed her, moving with a light, floating step of her own to the exquisite music that recalled the guests.

“Oh, happy, Aunt Alida! You think we’re all awake, don’t you? I’m so afraid I’ll wake up!” said Beth leaning her head against Aunt Alida’s pale gray gown. “What do you represent, auntie dearest? Are you anything historical or Thanksgivingy?”

“It is only the children who represent something, Bethie. This isn’t my party, you know; I’m not a part of the party. But perhaps I represent Plymouth Rock--I’m nearly its color,” laughed Aunt Alida.

Beth found herself one of the last to enter the ballroom after she had kissed Aunt Alida and hurried on. Dirk was looking for her, for they were to be partners in this merry witch chase. The children were paired and drawn up in a long line with beautiful Natalie at their head. Beth and Dirk slipped into their places in the line, the few stragglers were summoned, and all was ready.

The orchestra burst forth in a strain of wild, sweet, strange music which Beth did not know was Hungarian, but which she dimly felt harmonized with Natalie’s crimson figure as she darted forward in a swinging, swift dance-step down the room. The others followed her at a signal, giving her a good start. Then Natalie “led them a dance” indeed!

Up and down, over, across, straight, zigzagging, darting, turning, Natalie danced, and ever following her came the pretty line of boys and girls in their quaint costumes, following as if Natalie were a sort of Pied Piper and they were her victims, or as though she were a witch, indeed, who had bewitched them.

Faster and faster the thrilling music rose, faster and faster Natalie led her winding pursuers, till at last, at a signal from Mrs. Cortlandt, the whole long train broke and spread out, encircling Natalie and taking her captive.

“The witch! We’ve caught the witch! What shall we do with her?” cried Dirk who had long ago forgotten his dislike of costumes and had danced the game-dance with gusto.

“Burn her! Hang her! Set her free! Hold her! Make her pay her forfeit!” cried various voices. They all turned to Mrs. Cortlandt for her verdict; she was to decide what should be the witch’s sentence.

“If she can lead you in singing as she has in dancing she shall go free!” cried Natalie’s mother.

The orchestra began to play “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” and Natalie began to sing. She had a sweet, clear young voice and she was fully able to redeem herself. The dancers followed her in this, as they had in dancing. It was a pretty chorus. But a strange thing happened. One by one the singers fell silent as they failed to remember the words. Only Beth, out of her careful training in such things in her old, so-different home in the Massachusetts hills, knew the anthem quite to the end. She sang it fearlessly in her sweet little voice, like a little song sparrow. And the Thanksgiving dance ended with Beth in her soft, silvery blue Priscilla gown singing “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” standing amid the silent circle of costumed young “Pilgrims and Strangers,” her happy, flushed little round face uplifted, her heart overflowing with true Thanksgiving gratitude and love. And Uncle Jim, watching the child, said under his breath: “God bless the dear little soul!”