Kerry

by Grace Livingston Hill

  When Natalie had finished the pastry with which the meal ended, she arose abruptly.

  “Come on, folks. It’s time we were in motion.”

  She paused reflectively, studying Kerry’s neat black frock.

  “You’ll have to have some togs!” she said, pointing her finger at Kerry rudely. “Get a hustle on. Can you dress in three minutes?”

  “Oh, couldn’t you please leave me out?” pleaded Kerry, shrinking back. “I would just love to sit here and read.”

  “Indeed no,” said Harrington with firmness, “you’re my partner, you know. Fix her up, Nat, and make it snappy! We’re going to do eighteen holes anyway this afternoon.”

  “But I really don’t play golf !” exclaimed Kerry in agitation. “You know I never was on a golf links but twice or three times in my life, and then I just knocked the balls around a little.”

  “Well, if you don’t play it’s time you learned,” said the youth cheerfully.

  Kerry looked around to protest to the father but he had vanished upstairs, and there was noting to do but follow the abrupt Natalie and be clothed to suit the family.

  Natalie produced a little French knitted dress of orange and brown that fitted Kerry very well and made her look more like a vivid little flame than ever. For a hat she deftly knotted a broad band of brown velvet ribbon around Kerry’s head, remarking as she did so in a most casual tone, “You’ve got stunning hair, you know!”

  But there was no admiration in the tone, no hint that she meant it for a compliment. Kerry had a feeling that she was merely taking account of stock socially for her own afternoon. She wanted her guest to make a good impression for her own social prestige.

  She rooted out a pair of golf shoes that fitted Kerry fairly well, and Kerry, much against her will, went down where the car and the young men were waiting.

  Young Holbrook took her in with new approval.

  “Good work, Nat!” he said, and then to Kerry, “I say, you’re some looker, do you know it?”

  Kerry found herself getting red with annoyance. She was not used to such frank personalities, and they embarrassed her. But she managed to summon a laugh.

  “It’s the borrowed plumage,” she said, “fine feathers make fine birds. Oh, what a wonderful view!”

  The young man followed her glance.

  “Yes. Nice river, isn’t it? But rather too much commercialized now for beauty. Too many dirty boats going up and down you know!”

  The young man had placed Kerry by his side in the front seat, evidently intending to do the driving himself. Natalie and the other young man were already in the backseat, Natalie in a flaming scarlet dress and cap.

  “What are we waiting for, oh, my heart?” asked the big Celt, casting his blue eyes up toward the house, and then at Natalie.

  “Oh, Dad and Mother! The other car has a flat tire and something wrong with the carburetor and has to go to the garage and be fixed. Isn’t it tiresome?”

  “In that case I’ll have to rustle out of this comfortable seat I suppose,” complained the youth.

  Both young people got out when the elder Holbrooks appeared, and took the middle seats, but they kept up a constant run of talk about it. Kerry wondered if she were getting old maidish. These young people seemed so openly rude to their elders. Or was this merely American, and had she become Europeanized?

  The afternoon was surprisingly pleasant, although Kerry had not anticipated pleasure in it. She shrank from exposing her ignorance of the game, she shrank from appearing among strangers in borrowed garments, and she shrank most of all from the attentions of the Holbrook youth who continued to flatter her at every opportunity. It amused Kerry to think that from being almost a recluse she had blossomed out in one short week into receiving attentions from three different men! Even a proposal of marriage from one of them! She could barely suppress a sudden grin of amusement as she remembered the occurrence of the evening before, and a sudden gratitude came over her that she was out here in this beautiful open and not cooped up in her room hiding from Dawson.

  “Pep her up, Harry!” had been the final greeting of Natalie to her twin as she sailed off with her own escort, and soon Kerry and Harrington Holbrook were left far behind while Kerry was being taught “strokes” and the various details necessary to the game.

  The young man was good company. He accepted her as a comrade and did not make her feel uncomfortable. There were certain things about him that made her think of his father, kind, and amusing and not self-centered. Yet now and then when he spoke of his “work,” which she presently discovered was with a great architect, she glimpsed that keen look that the elder Holbrook had worn in the office the first day she had seen him.

  Mrs. Holbrook left them at the clubhouse. There was bridge and a tea later. They did not see her again until the eight o’clock dinner.

  Mr. Holbrook, in knickers and plain stockings and a gray sweater, looked like a big nice boy. He passed her once on another fairway and smiled.

  “Having a good time, little girl?” he said, and Kerry felt her heart warm within her. He was her boss, her father’s publisher! How good God had been to her!

  The evening was much worse than the afternoon.

  Kerry came down in her green chiffon looking sweet and lovely. The velvet bows had made her frock another thing and were most becoming. A string of pearl beads and her lovely hair were all the adornments she ever needed, though she did not know that. But the eyes of Natalie scorched over her dissatisfiedly.

  “I’ll have to get to work on you again!” she announced, rudely looking her over. “You can’t go to the clubhouse tonight in that thing!”

  “Natalie, really!” protested her father. “Your jokes are carried a little too far for courtesy I think.”

  “I’m not joking, Dad,” said Natalie, “I’m dead in earnest. Ask mother if I’m not.”

  Mrs. Holbrook turned her sharp attention and a lorgnette on Kerry’s quaint little garb.

  “Why don’t you let her wear that little green tulle?” she said, turning to her daughter. “She seems to look good in green. It brings out her hair.”

  “I thank you,” Kerry said quietly. “If you will just kindly leave me out of your plans this evening I shall be so much obliged. I had no idea of going out anywhere or I should not have felt free to come. You will really make me more comfortable if you will just go and let me stay quietly here reading. I couldn’t think of letting you dress me up again. It is most kind of you of course, but really, you know, I don’t belong.”

  “Now, Natalie, you see you have really been rude,” said her father, trying to look severe and failing.

  “Not at all!” said the mother sharply. “Natalie is perfectly right. Miss Kavanaugh came out here not knowing what we were expecting to do and didn’t bring along the right things. It’s Natalie’s place to lend her something. Besides, when we entertain a guest we usually take her with us wherever we go. I have arranged for her to be there of course.”

  “Say, look here!” spoke up the young son of the house. “I’ve got something to say about this. Miss Kavanaugh is going with me this evening, and I like the dress she has on. It looks like the woods at twilight, and her hair makes you think of the sunset left over.”

  “Don’t get poetic, Harry,” scoffed his mother. “Miss Kavanaugh’s dress is not in the least suitable. It is too somber. She would feel uncomfortable in it.”

  “Well, it strikes me you all are rather dumb,” persisted the young man. “Didn’t Dad say Miss Kavanaugh’s father had recently died? Perhaps she doesn’t feel like wearing all the doohickies the rest of you do.”

  “Oh!” said Mrs. Holbrook, casting a sudden accusative look at Kerry, as much as to say, “What are you doing here then?”

  “Oh!” said Natalie, as if an affront had just been offered her.

  Then Kerry lifted clear eyes and spoke steadily, “Mr. Holbrook, you are very kind. You are all very kind. But that is not the reason. I should not have come if I had bee
n going to put my recent sorrow upon other people, and anyway my father did not approve of mourning, or anything like that. The truth is I am wearing the only dress I happen to have at present. I’m sorry that it does not seem to suit the occasion, but you see I’m not suitable myself I am afraid. I’ve always lived a very quiet life, and I’ve had no occasion to have dresses for dances. You see I don’t dance either. It hasn’t been in my line.”

  Then up spoke the father of the family, gravely with open admiration in his eyes and voice.

  “Well, I think Shannon Kavanaugh has reason to be proud of his daughter!” he said. “If my daughter had come up as fine and sweet as this girl has, without all the folderols the world thinks necessary today, I certainly would be delighted.”

  Natalie gave a toss of her head at this and made a wry face.

  “Oh, Dad! You’re so old-fashioned!” She laughed contemptuously.

  “I’m sure it’s very commendable in Miss Kavanaugh to be content with what she has,” observed Mrs. Holbrook coolly.

  “It is!” said the elder Holbrook. “It’s most commendable in her to take an interest in the real things of life instead of giving herself entirely to play as most of the women and girls I know are doing. But there’s one thing I want distinctly understood. Miss Kavanaugh is our guest, and she is to do exactly as she pleases. If she doesn’t want to go to dances, she doesn’t have to, understand? And she’s not to be made uncomfortable about it either.”

  “Oh, of course!” said Mrs. Holbrook coldly, eyeing Kerry disapprovingly. “But you must remember, Ripley, it was you who suggested taking Miss Kavanaugh to the clubhouse and introducing her.”

  “Yes, Dad,” put in Natalie impudently, “and it was you who told us to invite all our crowd. You gave me all the dope to tell them about Miss Kavanaugh, how she was the daughter of a distinguished scientist and all that, and now I’ve got them perfectly crazy to meet her, and what am I going to say?”

  Kerry listened to the family conference in dismay. The mother and daughter talked on about her exactly as if she were not present. But presently Kerry interrupted.

  “Really, Mrs. Holbrook, I couldn’t think of causing you embarrassment. Of course I will do whatever you wish me to do. If going over there will relieve the situation I’m perfectly willing to go, and would be delighted to meet your friends. And although I am much embarrassed to put you to the trouble, I am willing, of course, to wear what you wish—if you have something simple that you won’t mind my wearing. You must remember, I don’t dance. Perhaps that will be an embarrassment to you also.”

  “I’ll make it my business to see that objection is out of the way by the next dance,” put in Holbrook Junior. “I’ll be delighted to teach you.”

  “Thank you,” said Kerry, smiling bravely, though she felt on the very verge of tears, “you are all very kind I’m sure, but there won’t be any next dance for me, and if you please I would rather not learn. I shall not have time for such things, and—well, it isn’t in my line, you know.”

  But Mrs. Holbrook had taken command and taken Kerry at her word.

  “How about that little black frock you thought you might return, Natalie? Perhaps she might look good in that. Black would be stunning with that hair of course. What was the matter with it that you did not like it? I forget.”

  “Oh, it had those funny little new styles, on an evening gown, and the back wasn’t low enough cut for the present style. It looked frumpy.”

  “That sounds more like me,” Kerry said, smiling. “Did you say you were returning it? Then if it fits why couldn’t I buy it? I would like that much better than having to borrow, and maybe having something happen to the dress while I had it on. Could I afford it? Was it very expensive?”

  “I should say not!” said Natalie with contempt. “It was only twenty-five dollars! They were having a bargain sale, and I thought when I saw it in the window it was darling, but when I got it on I looked like one of the pilgrim fathers.”

  Kerry winced inwardly at the idea of paying out twenty-five more of her precious dollars, but still, she would have one more dress, if it was at all wearable, and it seemed a case of necessity. This was her publisher’s house, and she must do him honor. She must be decently dressed.

  The ladies adjourned upstairs, and the dress was brought out. Kerry found it quite wearable although she did not care especially for the style, a tightly fitted waist of transparent velvet with many tiers of black malines ruffles floating out like feathery spray down to her very feet. But the round neck was becoming and not too low, and there were tiny pugs of sleeves at the very top of the shoulder. Kerry had to admit to herself that she did look rather nice in it in spite of these objections. And then, the only alternative was a jade green taffeta of Natalie’s, which boasted a very low corsage, clasped over the shoulders with straps of rhinestones and no back at all, as far as the waistline.

  “I’ll take this,” said Kerry quietly, “that is, if you are sure you do not want to keep it. It will probably be quite useful to me.” And she produced the money at once.

  Somehow her action seemed to inspire more interest in Miss Natalie. She offered some showy shoe buckles and a rhinestone necklace, but Kerry thanked her and declined.

  When she was ready a few minutes later, with her new coat on her arm, she had the little green silk shawl from China slung across her shoulders like a scarf, and the effect was rather startling.

  “Oh, I say!” ejaculated the younger Holbrook as she came down the stairs. “I didn’t think you could look any prettier, but you certainly are some peach now!”

  “Don’t be rude, Harry!” condemned his mother cuttingly as she sailed down in purple tulle and amethysts, and took a quick furtive survey of Kerry. It annoyed her that this girl who was evidently not of their world could yet take a discarded gown that had made her daughter look like a frump and make it serve her beauty so regally. That hair of course was most unusual.

  There was something in reflected glory. Since her husband had willed that this girl must be entertained, it was just as well to get any possible advantage from it that there might be. So Mrs. Holbrook surveyed her young guest critically, with reluctant approval and as Kerry was about to put on her new green coat she swept it aside and substituted for it a long evening wrap of her own black velvet with an ermine collar.

  “That’s a very lovely garment of course, my dear,” she said condescendingly, “but it will crush your skirt terribly. Take this instead.”

  So Kerry went to the dance looking like a young princess, and wondered at herself. On the way over to the clubhouse sitting beside Harrington Holbrook she thought of Graham McNair and the wonderful Saturday night one week before out on the ocean in the moonlight. How she wished she were going with him somewhere to hear him talk of the things of another world, rather than with these people who were not of her kind.

  Chapter 15

  A dance meant nothing at all to Kerry. She had never actually attended one, although of course she had been dancing at hotels and other paces in her travels. At school the girls had danced but it never interested her so she had taken no part in it. It had not occurred to her that there might be anything in the gathering to which she was invited that would be incongruous with the new life of the spirit into which she had recently entered. She was simply being polite.

  But when they arrived at the clubhouse, and the introductions began, she felt more and more out of her element, both physically and spiritually. She did not like the way the women were dressed, voluptuously, with much makeup. Perhaps her father’s prejudice against such things made her dislike them more than she otherwise would have done. She did not like the way the women talked. Not all, but many of them, especially the young girls were openly carelessly profane, and used expressions that she had been taught to feel were coarse. Some of the older women in the dressing room were gathered together having a royal gossip about a poor young thing who evidently used to be of their number, and now was in some kind of disgrace. Kerry
couldn’t help wondering, as she stood before the mirror fastening back a recalcitrant wave of hair, whether these same unholy, self-righteous women had not prepared the way for the girl to walk into disgrace. Surely an atmosphere like this was not one in which to grow in righteousness.

  Back in the great club room again with the Holbrooks, being introduced right and left, to girls and young men, and women and old men, Kerry suddenly perceived herself a celebrity. So this was why she had had to be better dressed. She was the daughter of one of the world’s great men. Well, perhaps she would consider this a part of business, and swallow it down as such. She was taking her father’s honors. How he had disliked having a fuss made over him. Yet she found herself glad that he was honored by the world, and that she might know that people cared.

  But there came cocktails.

  That was another thing that Kerry had not considered would affect her. Of course she knew people in social life drank such things, but her father had taught her to hate it. It was just another separating custom, that was all.

  Quite simply she declined them but met so much remonstrance that she discovered at once it was a sore point. People raised their eyebrows questioningly at her. One large dowager asked her if her father had been a prohibitionist, and jokes flew around about the eighteenth amendment. Kerry had no idea what it was all about. She knew nothing of American politics, and little of American customs, having been away so long.

  But she noticed that when she declined the second cocktail young Holbrook declined also, and in spite of the jeers and loud protests of his friends he continued to shake his head.

  She turned to him with a bright smile.

  “What’s the idea?” she asked. “Aren’t we allowed to eat and drink as we please?”

  He grinned.

  “Come on, let’s get out of this,” he said in a low tone. “I’ll take you for a ride in the moonlight.”