The Cromptons Part 14

"Oh," she said, "you wanted it for that? Why not have a lace ruffle?

I'll get one in a jiffy."

Eloise declined the ruffle. The handkerchief was bad enough, but a lace ruffle with that gown would have been worse.

"Now, I'll call Tim to go in front and keep you from falling. He is kind of awkward, but I'll go behind and stiddy you, and you grit your teeth and put on the mind cure, and down we go," Mrs. Biggs said, calling Tim, who came shambling up the stairs, and laughed aloud when he saw Eloise wrapped in his mother's gown.

"Excuse me, I couldn't help it; mother has made you into such a bundle," he said good-humoredly, as he saw the pained look in Eloise's face. "I'll get your trunk the next train, and you can have your own fixin's. What am I to do?"

This last was to his mother, who explained the way she had gone downstairs when she sprained her ankle twenty years ago come Christmas.

"She must sit down somehow on the top stair and slide down with one before her,--that's you,--and one behind,--that's me,--and she's to put on the mind cure. Miss Jenks says it does a sight of good."

Tim looked at his mother and then at Eloise, whose pitiful face appealed to him strongly.

"Oh, go to gra.s.s," he said, "with your mind cure! It's all rot! I'll carry her, if she will let me. I could of done it last night as well as them fine fellows."

He was a rough young boy of sixteen, with uncouth ways; but there was something in his face which drew Eloise to him, and when he said, "Shall I carry you?" she answered gladly, "Oh, yes, please. I don't think I have any mind to put on."

Lifting her very gently in his strong arms, while his mother kept saying she knew he'd let her fall, Tim carried her down and into the best room, where he set her in a rocking-chair, and brought a stool for her lame foot to rest upon, and then said he would go for her trunk, if she would give him her check. There was something magnetic about Tim, and Eloise felt it, and was sorry when he was gone. The world looked very dreary with the fog and rain outside, and the best room inside, with its stiff hair-cloth furniture, glaring paper and cheap prints on the wall--one of them of Beatrice Cenci, worse than anything she had ever seen. She was very fastidious in her tastes, and everything rude and incongruous offended it, and she was chafing against her surroundings, when Mrs.

Biggs came bustling in, very much excited, and exclaiming, "For the land's sake, they are comin'! They are right here. They hain't let much gra.s.s grow. Let me poke your hair back a little from your forehead,--so!

That's right, and more becomin'."

"Who are coming?" Eloise asked.

"Why, Mr. Crompton and his friend. I don't know his name," Mrs. Biggs replied, and Eloise felt a sudden chill as she thought of the figure she must present to them.

If she could only look in the gla.s.s and adjust herself a little, or if Mrs. Biggs would throw something over the unsightly slipper and the ankle smothered in so many bandages. The mirror was out of the question.

She had combed her hair with a side comb which had come safely through the storm, but she felt that it was standing on end, and that she was a very crumpled, sorry spectacle in Mrs. Biggs's spotted gown, with the handkerchief round her neck. Hastily covering her foot with a fold of the wide gown, she clasped her hands tightly together, and leaning her head against the back of her chair, drew a long breath and waited.

She heard the steps outside, and Mrs. Biggs's "Good-mornin'; glad to see you. She is expectin' you, or I am. Yes, her laig is pretty bad. Swelled as big as two laigs, just as mine was twenty years ago come Christmas, when I sprained it. Tim brought her downstairs where she can see folks.

She's in the parlor. Walk in."

Eloise's cheeks were blazing, but the rest of her face was very pale, and her eyes had in them a hunted look as the young men entered the room, preceded by Mrs. Biggs in her working ap.r.o.n, with her sleeves rolled up.

"Miss Smith, this is Mr. Crompton," she said, indicating Howard; "and the t'other one is--his name has slipped my mind."

"Harcourt," Jack said, feeling an intense sympathy for the helpless girl, whose feelings he guessed and whose hand he held a moment with a clasp in which she felt the pity, and had hard work to keep the tears back.

Howard also took her hand and felt sorry for her, but he did not affect her like Jack, and she did not like his eyes, which she guessed saw everything. He had a keen sense of the ridiculous, and the contrast between Eloise and the gown which he knew must belong to Mrs. Biggs struck him so forcibly that he could scarcely repress a smile, as he asked how she had pa.s.sed the night. Mrs. Biggs answered for her. Indeed, she did most of the talking.

"She slep' pretty well, I guess; better'n I did when I sprained my ankle twenty years ago come Christmas. I never closed my eyes, even in a cat nap, and she did. I crep' to her door twice to see how she was gettin'

on, and she was--not exactly snorin'--I don't s'pose she ever does snore,--but breathin' reg'lar like, jess like a baby, which I didn't do in a week when I sprained my ankle."

She would have added "twenty years ago come Christmas," if Jack had not forestalled her by asking Eloise if her ankle pained her much.

"Yes," she said, while Mrs. Biggs chimed in, "Can't help painin' her, swelled as 'tis,--big as two ankles; look."

She whisked off the bottom of her dress which Eloise had put over her foot, and disclosed the shapeless bundle encased in the old felt slipper.

"Look for yourselves; see if you think it aches," she said.

This was too much for Eloise, who, regardless of pain, drew her foot up under the skirt of her dress, while her face grew scarlet. Both Howard and Jack were sorry for her, and at last got the conversation into another channel by saying they had brought her satchel and hat, which they feared were ruined, and asking if she had seen the hat Miss Amy had sent her.

"Land sakes, no! I told her about it, but I hain't had time to show it to her," Mrs. Biggs exclaimed, starting from the room, while Howard explained that his cousin had tried in vain to renovate the drenched hat, and, finding it impossible, had sent one of her own which she wished Miss Smith to accept with her compliments.

"How do you like it?" Mrs. Biggs asked, as she came in with it.

It was a fine leghorn, with a wreath of lilacs round the crown, and Eloise knew that it was far more expensive than anything she had ever worn.

"It is very pretty," she said, "and very kind in the lady to send it.

Tell her I thank her. What is her name?"

Jack looked at Howard, who replied, "She has had a good many, none of which pleased my uncle, the last one least of all; so he calls her Miss Amy, and wishes others to do so."

Eloise was puzzled, but the sight of Mrs. Biggs tugging at her wet satchel to open it diverted her mind.

"Your things is sp'ilt, most likely, but you'd better have 'em out. For the mercy's sake, look!" she said, pa.s.sing the satchel to Eloise, who was beyond caring: for what was spoiled and what was not. "There's somebody knockin'. It's Mr. Bills, most likely, the committee man, come to see you; I told Tim to notify him," Mrs. Biggs exclaimed, hurrying out, and saying to Howard as she pa.s.sed him, "You can visit a spell before I fetch him in. She needs perkin' up, poor thing."

It proved to be a grocer's boy instead of Mr. Bills, and Mrs. Biggs came back just as Howard was presenting the slippers.

"I did not think they were just what you wanted," Howard explained, as he saw the look of surprise on Eloise's face. "Miss Amy is not always quite clear in her mind, but rather resolute when it is made up; and when we told her we had to cut off your boot, she insisted upon sending these."

At this point Mrs. Biggs appeared, throwing up both hands at what she saw, and exclaiming, "Wall, if I won't give up! Satin slips for a spraint laig. Yes, I'll give up!"

She looked at Howard, who did not reply, but turned his head to hide his laugh from Eloise, while Mrs. Biggs went on, "I don't see how she can ever get her feet into 'em. I can't mine, and I don't b'lieve she can.

Better send 'em back;" and she looked at Eloise, who, if she was proud of any part of her person, was proud of her feet.

Flus.h.i.+ng hotly she said, "They are not suitable for me, of course, but I think I _could_ get one on my well foot."

"I know you could; try it," Jack said.

Stooping forward Eloise removed her boot, although the effort brought a horrible twinge to her lame ankle and made her feel faint for a moment.

"Put it on for me, please," she said to Mrs. Biggs, who, mistaking the right-hand slipper for the left, began tugging at it.

"I told you so," she said. "Your foot is twice as big."

"Try this one," Jack suggested, "or let me;" and he fitted the slipper at once to the little foot, while Mrs. Biggs exclaimed, "Wall, I vum, it does fit to a T! If anything, it's too big."

In spite of her pain and embarra.s.sment there was a look of exultation in Eloise's eyes, as they met those of Jack, who was nearly as pleased as herself.

"You will keep them and wear them some time," he said; and when Eloise declined, saying they would be of no use to her, Howard, who had been watching this Cinderella play with a good deal of interest, and wis.h.i.+ng he had been the prince to fit the slipper instead of Jack, said to Eloise, "I think it better for you to keep them. Miss Amy will not like to have them returned, and if they were, she'd give them to some one else, or very likely send them to the Rummage Sale we are to have in town."

"That's so," Mrs. Biggs chimed in. "There is to be a rummage sale, and Ruby Ann has spoke for Tim's old clothes and mine, especially our shoes.

Keep 'em by all means."

Eloise was beginning to feel faint again, and tired with all this talk and excitement, and painfully conscious that Howard's eyes were dancing with laughter at the sight of her feet,--one swollen to three times its natural size and pushed into Mrs. Biggs's old felt shoe, and the other in Miss Amy's white satin slipper.