THE QUEST OF A TWEED COAT

With aunt and uncle safely ensconced on the side porch, between books and papers enough to hold their attention for a considerable time, Glory proceeded to “dig up the fun.”

“I’ll play I’m Hazel,” she decided, “although I hope no one asks me to supply the wonderful voice.” An original trill demonstrated why.

The blinds were closely drawn, and the Morningside room seemed a safe enough place for her exploit.

“Here, Tobias,” she ordered, “you can’t stay. You might scratch something or upset a cushion. Skiddoo!”

Reluctantly the big cat went out and again the door was silently closed.

“Every sort of make-up,” ruminated the girl. “I may as well be very pretty while I’m about it.”

What Trixy called the “tools” were found in a corner of the small side drawer of the dressing table, and along with them was a collection of various shades of powders, tints and even paste, the like of which Gloria had never before encountered.

They were fascinating. She daubed on white—all around her ears and over her nose, then she perfectly white-washed her nose, although she laughed so heartily, (if she did have to take it out in chuckles,) that a shower of the powder came down almost into her mouth.

Putting on the lip stuff was more serious. It took both courage and invention to find out how to do that, and the girl with the inhuman pallor was not sure at all that she was coming anywhere near the mark.

“I know how to do the cheeks,” she decided, “for we had lots of paint on at the last school play.” With that assurance she described a red circle, then a full moon on each cheek, ending with a dab on her chin. She had seen someone do that.

“Of course Hazel only does this when she sings, I suppose,” Gloria was charitable enough to guess. “But I should think she would have to take lessons to learn how to apply all that stuff; like a landscape.”

The tiny brushes for the eyebrows she put aside without attempting to apply them to her naturally long, curly lashes, and when she finally had her hair puffed out at the ears, and turned up at the back and finished the coiffeur with a great belt pin, she gazed at the girl in the mirror with wonder and fascination.

“I don’t blame them,” she was thinking. “It’s wonderful to look like somebody else.”

From its own particular hook she slipped the most gorgeous coral velveteen robe, evidently Hazel was not allowed to take such finery to boarding school, for this was too pretty to relinquish, otherwise. The dark flash in Gloria’s eyes responded beautifully to the glow of the coral, and with her own slippers—the red felts Jane had given her, she capered around, swishing her long sash and doing a dance not yet done publicly. It was original, and decidedly novel, to say the least. She was having a wonderful time, forgot all her loneliness and almost forgot it was Sunday. After all, it is the best gift of Heaven to be a girl, to be able to forget trouble, and to have hope so imbedded in one’s nature that nothing short of Heaven’s own weapons can crush it.

“If only Millie could see me,” mused Gloria.

Then she thought of Tommy, not that she ever forgot any of her friends for long, but with the new school and its consequent companions, those out on Barbend seem quite a distant away from her.

Very carefully she switched on the light. Everything looked better in the electric glow, and now she tried several new poses. She liked the coral velveteen, she liked her hair high, and she liked the “canned complexion.” Twisting her face until her dimples cracked under the enamel, she even talked to herself in the most elegant and theatrical manner.

Suddenly she heard a commotion downstairs. Her plight dawned upon her with something of a shock.

Suppose they should call her! She would not answer, she could not answer until she had—

How could she get all that stuff off!

Voices! Coming up!

“Why, Hazel! This is a surprise!”

“Hazel!” gasped the frightened girl. “What ever shall I do!” She was trying to get out of the robe, she had switched off the lights, and the voices were now at the very door!

“I just had a chance to ride out” (this was Hazel’s voice) “and so I grabbed it. You have no idea how strict they are. One would think we were in a convent.” Deprecation akin to scorn.

“Gloria is here,” said Mrs. Towers, in a resigned voice.

“Oh—yes.” This short sentence was not uttered with any gasp of delight, but Hazel drawled it out meaningly. The “yes” was raised significantly.

“Yes,” repeated the mother. “I wonder—”

She evidently did not want to admit that the cousin was usurping her daughter’s room.

“I’ve got to rush, Momsey,” exclaimed Hazel, entering the door just as Gloria sprang into the closet.

“Mother!” cried Hazel. “Is Gloria using—my—room?”

“Shs-s-hh!”

“Is she?”

“Your father—”

“I don’t care anything about father. Tell me, is she?”

“Hazel, please keep your voice down,” begged the distracted mother. “You don’t know what I’ve been through—”

“I do, or I can imagine, for I know Gloria.

“I suppose she was furious—”

“No, she has been actually very sensible—”

“Then look out. She has a motive if she is sensible. But, mother, I have got to run along, or we will be put on probation if we over stay, and there is no telling what may delay us. We had to stop to get air in the car coming out.”

Gloria was now so far back in the closet that she could hardly breathe, but the door had sprung open a crack so she heard distinctly what the mother and daughter were saying.

“Where’s my tweed coat? I’ve got to take that. It’s quite cold evenings—”

She was coming to the closet! Gloria dared not stir! What if she should ever discover her with all that make-up on her face and hiding in the clothes press!

“Where is my tweed coat?” again demanded the flurried Hazel.

“I’ll look,” volunteered the equally flurried mother, and she came to the closet—pushed the things back—there were only a few hooks between Gloria and discovery. Then some of the things fell down.

“Oh!” shrieked Hazel. “I thought I heard a mouse or something!”

“Maybe Tobias—”

“Turn on the light, mother. I will surely never get out again this week if I am late getting back. You see Jen had her car come down, her father’s driving or we couldn’t have come. Where on earth is that coat?”

Right in Gloria’s eye a heavy fold of cloth indicated a tweed coat. She crouched down still further. The closet was very long, running between two rooms, and at its end was a box covering a heating pipe. The furnace had not been lighted for the season, but Gloria welcomed the pipe-box as something to crouch down upon. It was better than the floor.

If only they would find the coat! Or if they would only give up looking for it! Every second seemed an hour to the girl afraid to breathe lest she be discovered.

“Queer,” said Hazel’s mother, replacing some of the fallen garments.

“Now, mother,” said Hazel, leaving the closet and going out into the room to better emphasize her argument, “you know I don’t mind Gloria being here, but she positively must not use my room. I have spent too much time—”

“Do please be quiet, Hazel. Gloria won’t want to use it. She is perfectly satisfied with the other. But we just had to pacify your father.” There was a tone of helplessness in Mrs. Towers’ voice. Her daughter sighed. They were evidently both much confused.

“But this closet is all on end—”

A gasped “Oh” almost escaped Gloria. She clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle it.

“There’s the horn,” exclaimed Hazel. “Mother, I’ve got to go. But mail me that coat and a couple of extra white waists—”

“Hazel, your father insists I shall tell Gloria,” interrupted the mother.

“Now, mother!” this was in complete deprecation. “Do whatever you think best, but don’t worry me to death—”

“But I have to be worried to death—”

“But, mother, it may seem mean of me to say it, but didn’t you make the big mistake?”

“For you, Hazel.”

“Now, Momsey,” a resounding kiss, “just you wait until I am a great singer, then you won’t regret a single sacrifice. See if I don’t make it all up to you. We understand each other, don’t we, Momsey, if dad is difficult?”

The mother’s sigh was tempered with more embracing, then the tooting of the motor horn by Hazel’s impatient friends outside, made it so imperative that she hurry, there was no further possibility of prolonging the search for the tweed coat.

For some moments after the door was closed Gloria remained in the closet. Then she realized her uncle would soon be searching for her, and she also remembered how difficult it was apt to be to remove make-up.

She pushed the clothes aside and stole out quietly. Once more before the mirror she surveyed her face curiously.

“That was a risky laugh,” she told her reflection, “but it was worth the price. Only, I didn’t see Hazel, and I am sure she looked stunning. Her voice sounded that way.”

Quickly she slipped out of the robe—got the pins and buckles out of her hair, went to the alcove and dipped into the cold cream jar; then she breathed easier.

“If some one calls me now I can appear to have been taking a treatment. Any girl may daub on cold cream,” she decided calmly. In five minutes more she was almost herself again, although the tint of her cheeks was a trifle high, and the lines under her eyes a little crooked. Also she looked a lot prettier than usual.

“I just wonder what it is uncle wants aunt to tell me,” she ruminated, feeling livelier and more like herself than she had since coming out to Sandford. “Well, I’d like to know what happened to Aunt Lottie’s money, of course, but since I’ve stood it this long I guess I can hold out a while longer. And even Hazel is quite human. She kissed Aunt Hattie four times.”

Her uncle’s voice at the foot of the stairs confirmed her guess that he would presently be searching for her.

“Coming!” she called back, fastening the last snapper of her Jersey waist as she went.

And on her way down she composed an excuse for her aunt’s certain questions as to where she had been while Hazel was in the room.

“Poor little Aunt Hattie!” she was thinking, “I wonder was my own mother like her?”