The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors

CHAPTER XIV

AN EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY

Every American will always remember that winter of 1917 as being one of extreme unrest. Would we or would we not be plunged into the World War? Should we get in the game or should we sit quietly by and see Germany overrun land and sea?

Valhalla was not too much out of the world to share in the excitement, and like most of the world was divided in its opinions. Douglas and her father were for the sword and no more pens. Helen and Mrs. Carter felt it was a pity to mix up in a row that was not ours, although in her secret soul Helen knew full well that the row was ours and if war was to be declared she would be as good a fighter as the next. Nan was an out and out pacifist and declared the world was too beautiful to mar with all of this bloodshed. Lucy insisted that Nan got her sentiments from Count de Lestis, who had been “hogging” a seat by her sister quite often in the weeks before that day in March when diplomatic relations with Germany were broken off by our country. As for Lucy: she could tell you all about the causes of the war and was quite up on Bismarck’s policy, etc. She delighted her father with her knowledge of history and her logical views of the present situation. She and Mag were determined to go as Red Cross nurses if we did declare war, certain that if they tucked up their hair and let down their dresses no one would dream they were only fourteen. Bobby walked on his toes and held his head very high, trying to look tall, hoping he could go as a drummer boy or something if he could only stretch himself a bit.

“Good news, girls!” cried Helen one evening in February when they had drawn their seats around the roaring fire piled high with wood cut by Mr. Carter, whose muscles were getting as hard as iron from his outdoor work.

“What?” in a chorus from the girls, always ready for any kind of news, good or bad.

“The count is going to have a ball!”

“Really? When?”

“On the twenty-second of February! He says if he gives a party on Washington’s birthday nobody can doubt his patriotism.”

“Humph! I don’t see what business he has with patriotism about our Washington,” muttered Lucy.

“But he does feel patriotic about the United States, he told me he did,” said Nan.

“I think he means to take out his naturalization papers in the near future,” said Mr. Carter.

“He tells me he feels very lonesome now that he is in a way debarred from his own country,” sighed Mrs. Carter. “That book he wrote has made the Kaiser very angry.”

“Well, after the war is over that book will raise him in the estimation of all democracies,” suggested Douglas.

“Mag says that Billy wrote to Brentano’s to try and get him that book and they say they can’t find it; never heard of it,” blurted out Lucy.

“It has perhaps not been translated into English,” said Helen loftily.

“Mag says that that’s no matter. Brentano will get you any old book in any old language if it is in existence.”

“How can they when a book has been suppressed? I reckon the Kaiser is about as efficient about suppressing as he is about everything else. Well, book or no book, I’m glad to be going to a ball. He says we must ask our friends from Richmond and he is going to invite everybody in the county and have a great big splendid affair, music from Richmond, and supper, too.”

“Kin I go?” asked Bobby, curling up in Helen’s lap, a way he had of doing when there was no company to see him and sleep was getting the better of him.

“Of course you can, if you take a good nap in the daytime.”

“Daddy and Mumsy, you will go, surely,” said Douglas.

“Yes, indeed, if your mother wants to! I’m not much of a dancer these days, but I bet she can outdance any of you girls. Eh, Mother?”

“Not as delicate as I am now; but of course I shall go to the ball to chaperone my girls,” said the little lady plaintively. “I doubt my dancing, however.”

“He says we must ask Dr. Wright and Lewis and any other people we want. He says he is really giving this ball to us because we have been so hospitable to him,” continued Helen.

“We haven’t been any nicer to him than Miss Ella and Miss Louise,” said Lucy, who seemed bent on obstructing.

“But they are too old to have balls given to them,” laughed Helen. “They are going, though. I went to see them this afternoon with Count de Lestis and they are just as much interested as I am. They asked the privilege of making the cakes for the supper and he was so tactful that he did not tell them he was to have a grand caterer to do the whole thing. The old ladies just love to do it, and one is to make angel’s food and one devil’s food.

“The Suttons are going,” and Helen held the floor without interruptions because of the subject that was interesting to all the family. “Mr. Sutton says if the roads permit he will send his big car to take our whole family, and if the roads are too bum he will have the carriage out for Mrs. Sutton and Mumsy, and all of us can go in the hay wagon.”

“Grand! I hope the roads will be muddy up to the hubs!” cried Lucy. “Hay wagons are lots more fun than automobiles.”

“Hard on one’s clothes, though,” and Helen looked a little rueful. The question of dress was important when one had nothing but old last year’s things that were so much too narrow.

“What are you going to wear to the ball?” asked Douglas that night when she and Helen were snuggling down in their bed in the little room up under the roof.

“I haven’t anything but my rose chiffon. It is pretty faded looking and hopelessly out of style, but I am going to try to freshen it up a bit. Ah me! I don’t mind working, but I do wish I were not an unproductive consumer. I’d like to make some money myself and sometimes buy something.”

Douglas patted her sister consolingly. “Poor old Helen! I do feel so bad about you.”

“Well, you needn’t! But I did see such a love of a dancing frock when we were down town that day with Cousin Elizabeth: white tulle over a silver cloth with silver girdle and trimmings. It was awfully simple but so effective. I could just see myself in it. I ought to be ashamed to let clothes make so much difference with me, but I can’t help it. I am better about it than I was at first, don’t you think?”

“I think you are splendid and I also think you have the hardest job of all to do: working all the time and never making any money.”

The next morning Douglas held a whispered conversation with Nan before they got off to their respective schools.

“See what it costs but don’t let Helen know. She will be eighteen tomorrow, and if it isn’t worth a million, I am going to take some of my last month’s salary and get it for her.”

When Nan, who was not much of a shopper, approached the great windows of Richmond’s leading department store, what was her joy to see the very gown that Douglas had described to her displayed on Broad Street and marked down to a sum in the reach of a district school teacher.

“It looks so like Helen, somehow, that I can almost see her wearing it in place of the wax dummy,” exclaimed Nan.

“Must I charge it, Miss Carter?” asked the pleasant saleswoman as she took the precious dress out of the show-window.

“Please, Miss Luly, somehow I’d rather not charge it, but I haven’t the money today. Couldn’t you fix it up somehow so I could take it with me and bring you the money tomorrow? We don’t charge any more, but if I don’t buy it right now I’m so afraid somebody else might get it.”

The smiling saleswoman, who had been waiting on the Carters ever since the pretty Annette Sevier came a bride to Richmond, held a conference with the head of the firm on how this could be managed.

“Miss Nan Carter is very anxious not to charge, but can’t pay until tomorrow.”

“Ummm! A little irregular! What Carter is it?”

“Mr. Robert Carter’s daughter!”

“Let her have it and anything else she wants on any terms she wishes. Robert Carter’s name on a firm’s books is the same as money in the bank. I have wondered why his account has been withdrawn from our store,” and the head of the firm immediately dictated a letter to his former patron, requesting in polite terms that he should run up as big a bill as he wished and that he could pay whenever he got ready. So very polite was the letter that one almost gathered he need not pay at all.

Mr. Carter laughed aloud when he read the letter, remembering those days not yet a year gone by when the bills used to pile in on the first of every month and he would feel that they must be paid immediately and the only way to do it was redouble his energy and work far into the night.

The flat box with the precious dancing dress was not an easy thing to carry on stilts, but the lane was muddy and Nan had to do it somehow. With much juggling she got safely over the dangers of the road and smuggled it into the house without Helen’s seeing it.

“I got it!” Nan whispered to Douglas when she could get her alone.

“But you didn’t have the money! I asked you to find out the price first,” said Douglas, fearing Nan, in her zeal, had overstepped the limit in price. “I didn’t want anything charged. I am so afraid we might get started to doing it again.”

“Never! I just kind of borrowed it until tomorrow. You see I struck a sale and they couldn’t save it for me because there were only a few of them. I told them I couldn’t charge but would bring the money tomorrow, and Miss Luly fixed it up for me, somehow, and told me I could have the whole department store on any terms I saw fit to dictate.”

Morning dawned on Helen’s eighteenth birthday but found her in not very jubilant spirits. It isn’t much fun to have an eighteenth birthday when you have to bounce out of bed and rush into your clothes to see that a poor ignorant country servant doesn’t make the toast and scramble the eggs before she even puts a kettle of water on for coffee. Chloe always progressed backwards unless Helen was there to do the head work.

Helen found Chloe had already descended her perilous ladder and had the stove hot and the kettle on as a birthday present to her beloved mistress. Chloe really adored Helen and did her best to learn and remember. The breakfast table was set, too, and Chloe’s eyes were shining as though she had something to say but wild horses would not make her say it.

The sisters came in at the first tap of the bell and her father was in his place, too. Helen started to seat herself at her accustomed place, but at a shout from Lucy looked before she sat. Her chair was piled high with parcels.

“Happy birthday, honey!” said Douglas.

“Happy birthday, daughter!” from Mr. Carter.

“Happy birthday! Happy birthday!” shouted all of them in chorus.

“Why, I didn’t know anybody remembered!” cried Helen.

“Not remember your eighteenth birthday! Well, rather!” said Mr. Carter.

Then began the opening of the boxes while Chloe stood in the corner grinning for dear life.

A pearl pin from Mrs. Carter, one she had worn when she first met her husband, was in the small box on top. An old-fashioned filigree gold bracelet was Mr. Carter’s gift. It had belonged to his mother, for whom Helen was named.

“It will look very lovely on your arm, my dear,” he said when Helen kissed him in thanks.

Cousin Elizabeth Somerville had sent her ten dollars in gold; Lewis, some new gloves; there was a vanity box from Lucy with a saucy message about always powdering her nose; a little thread lace collar from Nan, made by her own hands; and to balance all was a five-pound box of candy from Dr. Wright.

“I had a big marble for you, but it done slipt out’n my pocket,” said Bobby, and then he had to give a big hug and a kiss, which Helen declared was better than even a marble.

“But you haven’t opened your big box, the one at the bottom,” insisted Nan. It had got covered up with papers and Helen had overlooked it. “Please hurry up and open it because Lucy and I have to beat it. It will be train time before we know it.”

As Helen untied the strings and unwrapped the tissue paper that was packed around the contents of the big box you could have heard a pin drop in that dining-room at Valhalla. She eagerly pulled aside the papers and then shook out the glimmering gown.

“Oh, Douglas! Douglas! You shouldn’t have done it! It is even prettier than I remembered it to be!”

“Mind out, don’t splash on it,” warned Nan just in time to keep the two great tears that welled up into Helen’s eyes from spotting the exquisite creation.

“My Miss Helen’s gwinter look like a angel whin she goes ter de count’s jamboree,” declared Chloe.

“Well, your Miss Douglas is the angel and she’s going to have to have a new dress with slits in the shoulder-blades to let her wings come through,” sobbed Helen, laughing at the same time as she held the dress up in front of her and danced around the table. She had thought nobody remembered her eighteenth birthday and now found nobody had forgotten it.

“You shouldn’t have afforded it, Douglas. I can’t keep it. It would be too selfish of me.”

“Marked down goods not sent on approval,” drawled Nan.

CHAPTER XV

BLACK SOCIALISM

Sergeant Somerville and Private Tinsley accepted the invitation to the count’s ball with alacrity. Their company had been mustered out just in the nick of time for them to obtain indefinite leave. It was rumored that they were to be taken in again, this time as regulars, but the certainty of having no military duties to perform for the time being was very pleasant to our two young men.

The Carter girls had taken the count at his word and invited several friends from Richmond to stay at Valhalla and attend the ball. Dr. Wright was eager to come and with the recklessness of physicians who use their cars for business and not for pleasure, he made the trip in his automobile. He had a new five-seated car, taking the place of his former runabout.

“M. D.’s and R. F. D.’s have to travel whether roads are good or bad,” he had declared.

The two young soldiers and Tillie Wingo had the hardihood to risk their necks with him, and at the last minute he picked up Skeeter Halsey and Frank Maury, who had been invited by Lucy so that she and Mag would not have to be wall flowers. Six persons in a five-passenger car insures them from much jolting, as there is no room to bounce.

Tillie was in her element with five pairs of masculine ears to chatter in. She and Bill were still engaged “in a way,” as she expressed it, although neither one of them seemed to regard it very seriously. Tillie insisted upon making a secret of it as much as she was capable, so that in Bill’s absence she might not be laid on the shelf.

“The fellows don’t think much of an engaged girl,” she said frankly, “and I have no idea of taking a back seat yet awhile.”

The recklessness of the guests in coming over Virginia roads in an automobile in the month of February was nothing to the recklessness of the Carters in inviting six persons to spend the night with them when they possessed but one small guest chamber.

“We can manage somehow,” Helen declared, “and, besides, we will be out so late dancing there won’t be much use in having a place to sleep, because we won’t have any time to sleep.”

“Only think of all of those bedrooms at Grantly with nobody in them!” exclaimed Lucy. “Those old ladies might just as well ask some of us up there, but they will never think of it, I know.”

“If they do, they will disagree about which ones to ask and which rooms to put them in, and we will never get the invitation,” laughed Helen. “Anyhow, they are dear old ladies and I am mighty fond of them.” Helen often ran up to the great house to ask advice from the Misses Grant about household affairs and was ever welcome to the lonely old women.

“They are certainly going to the ball, aren’t they?” asked Douglas.

“They wouldn’t miss it for worlds. They are having a time just now, though, because Tempy has left them. They can’t find out what her reason is and feel sure she didn’t really want to go; now her sister Chloe is so near she seemed quite content, but for weeks she has been in a peculiar frame of mind and the last few days they have caught her in tears again and again. They sent for Dr. Allison, who lives miles and miles from here, but Miss Ella and Miss Louise will trust no other doctor. He says as far as he can tell she is not ill. Anyhow, she has gone home, and today their man-servant departed, also. Of course they might draw on the field hands for servants, but they hate to do it because they are so very rough. They have had this man-servant for years and years, ever since he was a little boy, and they can’t account for his going, either. He had a face as long as a ham when he left them and gave absolutely no excuse except that his maw was sick, and as Miss Ella says, ‘His mother has been dead for ten years, and she ought to know, since she furnished the clothes in which she was buried.’ Miss Louise said she had only been dead eight, and they were her clothes, but they agree that she is dead at least, and can’t account for Sam’s excuse.”

“Poor old ladies, I am sorry for them,” said Douglas.

On the day of the ball, there was much furbishing up of finery at Valhalla. Mr. Carter’s dress suit had to be pressed and his seldom used dress studs unearthed. Mrs. Carter forgot all about being an invalid and was as busy and happy as possible, trying dresses on her daughters to see that their underskirts were exactly the right length and even running tucks in with her own helpless little hands.

“It is a good thing I don’t have to think about my own outsides,” said Helen, “as all of my time must be spent in planning for our guests’ insides. I tell you, six more mouths to fill is going to keep Chloe and me hustling.”

“It sho’ is an’ all them dishes ter wash is goin’ ter keep me hustlin’ some mo’,” grumbled Chloe. “An’ then I gotter go ter the count’s an’ stir my stumps.”

“I am sorry, but I am going to give you a nice holiday after it is all over,” said her young mistress kindly. The count had asked Helen to bring Chloe to look after the ladies in the dressing-room.

“I ain’t a-mindin’ ’bout dishes. I’s jes’ a-foolin’ – Say, Miss Helen, what does potatriotic mean?”

“Patriotic? That means loving your country and being willing to give up things for it and help save it. Everybody should be patriotic.”

“But s’posin’ yer ain’t got no country?”

“Why, Chloe, everybody has a country, either the place where you were born or the place where you have been living long enough to love and feel that it is yours.”

“But niggers is been livin’ here foreveraneveramen, an’ still they ain’t ter say got no country.”

“Why, you have! Don’t you think Uncle Sam would look after you and fight for you if you needed his help?”

“I ain’t got no Uncle Sam, but I hear tell that he wouldn’t raise his han’ ter save a nigger, but yit if’n they’s a war that he’ll ’spec’ the niggers ter go git shot up fer him.”

“Why, Chloe! How can you say such a thing?”

“I ain’t er sayin’ it – I’s jes’ a-sayin’ I hears tell.”

“Who told it to you?”

“Nobody ain’t tol’ it ter me. I jes’ hearn it.”

“Well, it’s not true.”

“I hearn, too, that they’s plenty er money ter go ’roun’ in this country, but some folks what thinks they’s better’n other folks has hoarded an’ hoarded ’til po’ folks can’t git they han’s on a nickel. An’ I hearn that they’s gonter be distress an’ misery, an’ wailin’ an’ snatchin’ er teeth ’til some strong man arouses an’ makes these here rich folks gib up they tin. Nobody ain’t a-gonter know who dat leader will be, he mought be white an’ thin agin he mought be black, but he’s a-gonter be a kinder sabior.”

“How is he going to manage?” asked Helen, amused at what sounded like a sermon the girl might have heard from the rickety pulpit of the brick church.

“I ain’t hearn, but I done gib out ter all these niggers that my white folks ain’t got no tin put away here in this Hogwallow or whatever Miss Nan done named it. They keeps their money hot a-spendin’ it, I tells ’em all.”