Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories Part 14

As the manicure put the finis.h.i.+ng touch to her nails, Floss came rus.h.i.+ng in:

"Hurry up, Miss Lucy dear! d.i.c.k Benson has just 'phoned that he is going to take us for a farewell frolic. We leave here at five, have dinner somewhere, then do all sorts of stunts. You are going to wear my tan coat-suit and light blue waist. Yes, you are, too! That's all foolishness; everybody wears elbow-sleeves. Blue's your color, and I've got the hat to match. May says she'll fix your hair, and you can wear her French-heel Oxfords again. They pitch you over? Oh, nonsense! you just tripped along the other day like a nice little jay-bird. Hurry, hurry!"

Even Miss Lucinda's week of strenuous living had not prepared her for what followed. First, there was a short trip on the train, during which she conscientiously studied a map. Then followed a dinner at a large and ostentatious hotel. The decorations were more brilliant, the music louder, and the dresses gayer, than at any place Miss Lucinda had yet been. She viewed the pa.s.sing show through her gla.s.ses, and experienced a pleasant thrill of sophistication. This, she a.s.sured herself, was society; henceforth she was in a position to rail at its follies as one having authority.

In the midst of these complacent reflections she choked on a crumb, and, after groping with closed eyes for her tumbler, gulped down the contents. A strange, delicious tingle filled her mouth; she forgot she was choking, and opened her eyes. To her horror, she found that she had emptied her gla.s.s of champagne.

"Spirituous liquor!" she thought in dismay, as the shade of Miss Joe Hill rose before her.

Total abstinence was such a firm plank in the platform of the celestial affinity that, even in the chafing-dish, alcohol had been tabooed. The utter iniquity of having deliberately swallowed a gla.s.s of champagne was appalling to Miss Lucinda. She sat silent during the rest of the dinner, eating little, and plucking nervously at the ruffles about her elbows.

The fear of rheumatism in her wrists which had a.s.sailed her earlier in the evening gave way to a deeper and more disturbing discomfort.

When the dinner was over, the party started forth on a hilarious round of sight-seeing. Miss Lucinda limped after them, vaguely aware that she was in a giant electric cage filled with swarming humanity, that bands were playing, drums beating, and that at every turn disagreeable men with loud voices were imploring her to "step this way."

"Come on!" cried d.i.c.k. "We are going on the scenic railway."

But the worm turned. "I--I'm not going," she protested. "I will wait here. All of you go; I will wait right here."

With a sigh of relief she slipped into a vacant corner, and gave herself up to the luxury of being miserable. She longed for solitude in which to face the full enormity of her misdeed, and to plan an immediate reformation. She would throw herself bodily upon the mercy of Miss Joe Hill, she would spare herself nothing; penance of any kind would be welcome, bodily pain even--

She s.h.i.+fted her weight to the slender support of one high-heeled shoe while she rested the other foot. Her hair, unused to its new arrangement, pulled cruelly upon every restraining hair-pin, and her head was beginning to ache.

"I deny the slavery of sense. I repudiate the bondage of matter. I affirm spirit and freedom," she quoted to herself, but the thought failed to have any effect.

A two-ringed circus was in progress at her right while at her left a procession of camels and Egyptians was followed by a noisy crowd of urchins. People were thronging in every direction, and she realized that she was occasionally the recipient of a curious glance. She began to watch rather anxiously for the return of her party. Ten minutes pa.s.sed, and still they did not come.

Suddenly the awful possibility presented itself that they might have lost her. She had no money, and even with it, she knew she could not find her way back to the hotel alone. Anxiety gained upon her in leaps.

In bitter remorse she upbraided herself for ever having strayed from the blessed protection of Miss Joe Hill's authority. Gulfs of hideous possibility yawned at her feet; imagination faltered at the things that might befall a lone and unprotected lady in this bedlam of frivolity.

Just as her fear was turning to terror the party returned.

"Oh, here you are!" cried Floss. "We thought we had lost you. It was just dandy, Miss Lucy; you ought to have gone. It makes you feel like your feet are growing right out of the top of your head. Come on; we are going to have our tintypes taken."

Strengthened by the fear of being left alone again, Miss Lucinda rallied her courage, and once more followed in their wake. She was faint and exhausted, but the one grain of comfort she extracted from the situation was that through her present suffering she was atoning for her sins.

At midnight d.i.c.k said: "There's only one other thing to do. It's more fun than all the rest put together. Come this way."

Miss Lucinda followed blindly. She had ceased to think; there were only two realities left in the world, French-heels and hair-pins.

At the foot of a flight of steps the party paused to buy tickets.

"You can wait for us here, Miss Lucy," said Floss.

Miss Lucinda protested eagerly that she was not too tired to go with them. The prospect of being left alone again nerved her to climb to any height.

"But," cried Floss, "if you get up there, there's only one way to come down. You have to--"

"Let her come!" interrupted the others in laughing chorus, and, to Miss Lucinda's great relief, she was allowed to pa.s.s through the little gate.

When she reached the top of the long stairs, she looked about for the attraction. A wide inclined plane slanted down to the ground floor, and on it were b.u.mps of various sizes and shapes, all of a s.h.i.+ning smoothness. She had a vague idea that it was a mammoth map for the blind, until she saw d.i.c.k and Floss sit down at the top and go sliding to the bottom.

"Come on, Miss Lucinda!" cried May. "You can't get down any other way, you know. Look out! Here I go!"

One by one the others followed, and Miss Lucinda could not distinguish them as they merged in the laughing crowd at the base.

Delay was fatal; they would lose her again if she hesitated. In desperation she gathered her skirts about her, and let herself cautiously down on the floor. For one awful moment terror paralyzed her, then, grasping her skirts with one hand and her hat with the other and closing her eyes, she slid.

Miss Lucinda did not "hump the b.u.mps"; she slid gracefully around them, describing fanciful curves and loops in her airy flight. When she arrived in a confused bunch on the cus.h.i.+oned platform below, she was greeted with a burst of applause.

"Ain't it great?" cried Floss, straightening Miss Lucinda's hat and trying to get her to open her eyes. "d.i.c.k says you are the gamest chaperon he ever saw. Sit up and let me pin your collar straight."

But Miss Lucinda's sense of direction had evidently been disturbed, for she did not yet know which was up, and which was down. She leaned limply against Floss and tried to get her breath.

"Excuse me," said a man's voice above her, "but are either of you ladies Mrs. Lura Doring?"

The effect was electrical. Miss Lucinda sat bolt upright and stared madly about. Tom Sp.e.c.k.e.rt had told her to be sure to answer to that name. It would get him into trouble if she failed to do so.

"Yes, yes," she gasped; "I am Mrs. Lura Doring."

The members of her little party looked at her anxiously and ceased to laugh. The slide had evidently unsettled her mind.

"Why, this is Miss Perkins--Miss Lucinda Perkins of Locustwood, Ohio,"

explained d.i.c.k Benson to the officer, "She's rather upset by her tobogganing, and didn't understand you."

"I did," declared Miss Lucinda, making mysterious signs to d.i.c.k to be silent. "It's all right; I am Mrs. Doring."

The officer looked suspiciously from one to the other, then consulted his memorandum: "Small, slender woman, yellow hair, gray eyes, answers to name of Mrs. Lura Doring. Left Chicago on June 10."

"When did she get to New York?" asked the officer.

"A week ago to-morrow, on the eleventh," said Floss.

"Then I guess I'll have to take her up," said the officer; "she answers all the requirements. I've got a warrant for her arrest."

"Arrest!" gasped Benson. "What for?"

"For forging her husband's name, and defrauding two hotels in Chicago."

"My husband--" Miss Lucinda staggered to her feet, then, catching sight of the crowd that had collected, she gave a fluttering cry and fainted away in the arms of the law.

When Miss Joe Hill arrived in New York, in answer to an urgent telegram, she went directly to work with her usual executive ability to unravel the mystery. After obtaining the full facts in the case, she was able to make a satisfactory explanation to the officers at headquarters. Then she sent the girls to their respective homes, and turned her full attention upon Miss Lucinda.

"The barber will be here in half an hour to cut your hair," she announced on the eve of their departure for the Catskills.

"You ought not to be so good to me!" sobbed Miss Lucinda, who was lying limply on a couch.

Miss Joe Hill took her hand firmly and said: "Lucinda, error and illness and disorder are man-made perversions. Let the past week be wiped from our memories. Once we are in the mountains we will turn the formative power of our thoughts upon things invisible, and yield ourselves to the higher harmonies."