A New Name (Musaicum Vintage Mysteries). Grace Livingston Hill
to marry the Countess Lenowski when she gets her second divorce.”
“I don’t think that girl would marry a man like Murray Van Rensselaer,” spoke the thoughtful one. “She has too much character. She had a remarkable face.”
“Oh, you can’t tell by a face,” shrugged a slim one with sinuous body and a sharp black lock of hair pasted out on her cheek. “She can’t be much, or she wouldn’t let him buy her clothes.”
“She didn’t!” said the first speaker sharply. “I heard her say, ‘I wouldn’t think she would like that, Murray. It’s too noticeable. I’m sure a nice girl wouldn’t like that as well as the blue chiffon.’”
“Hmm!” said the slim one. “Looks as if she must be a relative or something. Did anybody get her name?”
“The address on the box was Elizabeth Chapparelle,” contributed a pale little errand girl who had stood by listening.
“Elizabeth!” said the thoughtful one. “She looked like an Elizabeth.”
“But if they weren’t for her, that wouldn’t have been her name,” persisted the fat one.
“I thought I heard him call her Bessie once,” said the little errand girl.
“Then he was buying for one of his old girls who is going to be married,” suggested the slim one contemptuously. “Probably this girl is a friend of them both.”
“Hush! Madame is coming! Which one did he take? The Lanvin green?”
“Both. He told Madame to send them both! Yes, Madame, I’m coming!”
A boy in a mulberry uniform with silver buttons entered.
“Say, Lena, take that to Madame, and tell her there’s a mistake. The folks say they don’t know anything about it.”
Lena, the pale little errand girl, took the heavy box and walked slowly off to find Madame, studying the address on the box as she went.
“Why!” She paused by the thoughtful-eyed woman. “It’s her. It’s that girl!” Madame appeared suddenly with a frown.
“What’s this, Lena? How many times have I told you not to stop to talk? Where are you carrying that box?”
“Thomas says there’s a mistake in the address. The folks don’t know anything about it.”
“Where is Thomas? Send him to me. Here, Thomas. What’s the matter? Couldn’t you find the house? The address is perfectly plain.”
“Sure, I found the house, Madame, but they wouldn’t take it in. They said they didn’t know anything about it. It wasn’t theirs.”
“Did they say Miss Chapparelle didn’t live there? Who came to the door?”
“An old woman with white hair. Yes, she said Miss Chapparelle lived there. She said she was her daughter, but that package didn’t belong to her. She said she never bought anything at this place.”
“Well, you can take it right back,” said Madame sharply. “Tell the woman the young lady knows all about it. Tell her it will explain itself when the young lady opens it. There’s a card inside. And Thomas,” she added, hurrying after him as he slid away to the door and speaking in a lower voice, “Thomas, you leave it there no matter what she says. It’s all paid for, and I’m not going to be bothered this way. You’re to leave it no matter what she says, you understand?”
“Sure, Madame, I understand. I’ll leave it.”
The neat little delivery car, with its one word, Grevet’s, in silver script on a mulberry background, slid away on its well-oiled wheels, and the service persons in their black satin straight frocks turned their black satin bobbed heads and looked meaningfully at one another with glances that said eagerly: “I told you so. That girl was different!” and Madame looked thoughtfully out of her side window into the blank brick wall of the next building and wondered how this was going to turn out. She did not want to have those expensive outfits returned, and she could not afford to anger young Van Rensselaer; he was too good a customer. Hehad expected her to carry out his instructions. It might be that she would have to go herself to explain the matter. Anyone could see that girl was too unsophisticated to understand. Her mother would probably be worse. She would have notions. Madame had had a mother once herself, so long ago she had forgotten many of her precepts, but she could understand. Madame was clever. This was going to be a case requiring clever action. But Madame was counting much upon Thomas. Thomas, too, could be clever on occasion. That was why he wore the silver buttons on the mulberry uniform and earned a good salary. Thomas knew that his silver buttons depended on his getting things across when Madame spoke to him as she had just done, and Madame believed Thomas would get this across.
In the early dusk of the evening when it came closing time at Grevet’s, the service women in chic wraps and small cloche hats flocked stylishly out into the city and made their various ways home. The thoughtful one and the outspoken one wound their way together out toward the avenue and up toward obscure streets tucked in between finer ones, walking to save carfare; for even those who worked at Grevet’s, there were circumstances in which it was wise in good weather to save carfare.
Their way led past the houses of wealth, a trifle longer perhaps, but pleasanter, with a touch of something in the air which their narrow lives had missed but which they liked to be near and enjoy if only in the passing. Their days at Grevet’s had fostered this love of the beautiful and real, perhaps, that made a glimpse into the windows of the great a pleasant thing: the drifting of a rare lace curtain, the sight of masses of flowers within, the glow of a handsome lamp, and the mellow shadows of a costly room, the sound of fine machinery as the limousines passed almost noiselessly, the quiet perfect service of the butler at the door, the well-groomed women who got out of the cars and went in, delicately shod, to eat dinners that others had prepared, with no thought or worry about expense. These were more congenial surroundings to walk amid, even if it took one a block or two farther out of the way, than a crowded street full of common rushing people, jostling and worried like themselves, and the air full of the sordid things of life.
They were talking about the events of the day, as people will, the happenings of their little world, the only points of contact they had in common out of their separate lives.
“How much have you sold today, Mrs. Hanley?” questioned the girl eagerly. “I had the biggest sale this month yet.”
The sad-eyed one smiled pleasantly.
“Oh, I had a pretty good day, Florence. This is always a good time of year, you know.”
“Yes, I know. Everybody getting new things.” She sighed with a fierce longing that she, too, might have plenty of money to get new things. A sigh like that was easily translatable by her companion. But for some reason Mrs. Hanley shrank tonight from the usual wail that the girl would soon bring up about the unfairness of the division of wealth in the world, perhaps because she, too, was wondering how to make both ends meet and get the new things that were necessary. She roused herself to change the subject. They were passing the Van Rensselaer mansion now, well known to both of them. She snatched at the first subject that presented itself.
“Why do you suppose Madame is so anxious to please that young man when everybody says he doesn’t pay his bills?”
“Oh,” said Florence almost bitterly, “she knows his dad’ll pay ‘em. It’s everything to have a name like that. He could get away with almost anything if he just told people who he was.”
“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Hanley almost sadly. “But I hope that girl doesn’t keep those clothes. She’s too fine for such as he is.”
“Yes, isn’t she?” said Florence eagerly. “I suppose most folks would think we were crazy talking like that. He’s considered a great catch. But somehow I couldn’t see a girl like that getting soiled with being tied up to a man that’s got talked about as much as he has. She’s different. There aren’t many like that living. That is the way she