The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors

“Whar Miss Ellanlouise?” asked Chloe, when she could get her breath after the first mad plunge into the delights of motoring.

“Oh, there! How selfish of me! I should have thought of it and asked them to go with us,” said Helen.

“We can go back for them,” suggested the doctor, who had begun to feel that he never would have a chance to see Helen alone.

“Oh, no, we needn’t mind. They are coming in their phaeton, and no doubt have started long before this. They are so good to me, I should have thought of them.”

Chloe was put out at Paradise, assuring her mistress she would come up through the woods in a few moments and no doubt be at her post in the dressing-room before the guests should arrive.

Paradise was very dark and lonesome. The few scattered cabins showed not a gleam. There was a dim light trickling from the windows of the club, but as they approached that rickety building, that disappeared. Helen saw some dark forms up close to the wall when she looked back after passing that place of entertainment.

“I reckon they are going to initiate someone tonight,” she thought.

“Chloe had such a strange talk with me today,” she told her companion and then repeated the conversation she had had with the colored girl. “I can’t quite understand her.”

“Perhaps this count is instilling some kind of silly socialistic notions in their heads,” suggested the doctor, who held the same opinion Lewis Somerville did of the gentleman who was to be their host for the evening. Indeed, he so cordially mistrusted him that only the fact he was to be with Helen had reconciled him to spending an evening under his roof.

“Oh, no, I can hardly think that, and besides, the count does not do the teaching. That is done by a Mr. Herz, his secretary. He is an American, born in Cincinnati. He seems to be very intelligent and certainly has taken a shine to Douglas. I don’t know just what she thinks of him, but she lets him walk home from school with her every now and then.”

“I don’t like the name much!”

“Well, the poor man can’t help his name. You speak as though we were already at war with Germany. I am trying to preserve our neutrality until war is declared.”

“My neutrality has been nothing but a farce since I have realized that Germany is at war with us.”

“You sound just like Douglas and Father. Will you go to war if it comes?”

“Why, of course! Would you have me do otherwise?”

“I – I – don’t know,” and Helen wished she had not asked the question that had called forth this query. This night was to be one of pleasure, feasting and dancing. War had no place in her thoughts when she had on her new dress and the music was coming from Richmond.

CHAPTER XVII

THE BALL

“Music and lights put me all in a flutter!” exclaimed Helen as they approached the broad and hospitable mansion.

Already there were several buggies and carriages in the gravelled driveway. The guests were arriving early, as sensible country people should. Let the city folks wait until far in the night to begin their revels, but those living in the country as a rule feel that balls should start early and break up early.

“Do you care so much for parties?”

“I think I must. I have not been to very many balls, because you see I am not out in society yet. I reckon I’ll never make my début now,” and Helen gave a little sigh.

“Does it make so very much difference to you?”

“Well, not so much as it would have a year ago. I used to feel that making one’s début was a goal that was of the utmost importance, but somehow now I do feel that there are things a little bit more worth while.”

“What for instance?”

“Getting Father well, and – and – ”

“And what?”

“You might think I am silly if I tell you, – silly to talk about it.”

“I promise to think you are you no matter what else it is, and you are – well, never mind what you are.”

“Well, somehow I have begun to feel that helping people to be gay is important, like cheering up Miss Ella and Miss Louise. They have such stupid times. I really believe they quarrel just to make life a little gayer. I go to see them every day and it makes me feel good all over to know how much they like to have me come.”

“And you were afraid I’d think that was silly?” asked George Wright as he halted his car down under a great willow oak, well away from the other vehicles. How he wished they were to stay out under that tree all evening! Music and dancing were nothing to him compared to the pleasure he obtained from talking to this girl.

“Let’s sit here until the others come,” he suggested.

“And waste all that good music!”

Dr. Wright began to envy the Misses Grant whom Helen wanted to make happy.

“Of course not! I forgot how seldom you have a chance to dance.”

Weston was wonderfully beautiful. The electric lights may have been an anomaly, but they certainly helped to make the old house show what it was capable of. The dead and gone colonials who had built the place had been forced either to have their balls by daylight or to content themselves with flickering candles, which no doubt dropped wax or even tallow on the handsome gowns of the beauties and belles. The broad hall with the great rooms on each side seemed to be made for dancing. The floor was polished to a dangerous point for the unwary, but the unwary had no business on a ballroom floor.

The count seemed in his element as he received his guests, but Herz looked thoroughly out of place and ill at ease.

“Ah, Miss Helen! I am so glad to welcome you – and Dr. Wright – it is indeed kind of you to come! I am depending upon you, Miss Helen, to help me entertain these people who have come so promptly. They neither dance nor speak. Herz is about as much use to me on this occasion as a porcupine would be. Only look around the room at my guests!”

They did indeed look most forlorn. One old farmer was almost asleep while his wife sat bolt upright by his side with a long sad face and a deep regret in her eyes. No doubt, she was regretting the comfortable grey wrapper she had discarded for the stiff, best, green silk, and the broad easy slippers that had been replaced by the creaking shoes. Several girls with shining eyes and alert expressions were evidently wondering what ailed the young men who stood against the wall as though it might fall down if they budged an inch.

“Why are they wasting all this good music?” demanded Helen.

“As you say in America: ‘Seek me!’” laughed the host.

“Search me, you mean.”

“Ah, but is it not almost the same? What do you say, Dr. Wright?”

“Well, I’d rather someone would seek me than search me.”

“So! And now, Miss Helen, if you will discard your wraps and return quickly and help me I shall be most grateful. If these poor people do not get started they will go to sleep.”

Helen flew up to the dressing-room which, sure enough, Chloe had reached before her. The girl was huddled down in a corner of the room looking the picture of woe.

“Did you see Tempy?” asked Helen, taking for granted that Chloe had been speaking of her sister when she had asked about one’s duty to one’s own people.

“No’m!”

“Wasn’t she at your mother’s?”

“I don’t know, ’m!”