Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman/Chapter 10

Seven o'clock dinner at Elberta Inn was a function in spite of the dried apple pies. Miss Oleander Denton always insisted upon making of it a real dinner party. It seemed as though, for the hour, she attempted to forget that her guests were paying ones. To her black silk gown she gave a festive air by turning it in at the neck, thereby exposing her too prominent clavicles, but the effect was softened by a beautiful old lace collar and a large cameo breastpin of rare workmanship, depicting a lady in hoop skirts by a grave, over which leant a weeping willow tree. Major Denton wore a rusty dress suit and a carnation in his buttonhole. The boarders dressed or not as they chose, but as a rule they played up to Miss Oleander's role of hostess and appeared at dinner in festive raiment.

The table was set with care and taste, but Josie found the food no better than the one meal she had eaten at Mrs. Pete's in Dorfield. Mrs. Pete's cabbage and the accompanying corned beef had been excellent, although the table had been covered with a red cloth, the crockery of the thickest, unbreakable variety and a large toothpick holder the only ornament. Miss Denton always had flowers on the table and her china was what remained in the family after the administration of the hundred slaves. It did not match but it was all good, some thin porcelain with a gold band, some Canton whose blue made Josie homesick for the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop and the little breakfast set, a gift from Mary Louise.

The great difference between 126 East Centre and the Elberta Inn lay in the type of boarders. A wider gulf existed between the clientele of the two places than that between a red table cloth and a fine damask one, or Canton china and Mrs. Pete's heavy stone crockery, or a vase of roses and a toothpick holder.

Most of the boarders were permanent ones and while it was a rule of the house to resent transients, they were secretly welcome because of the added zest they gave to the humdrum of everyday life. The permanent guests of Elberta Inn knew only too well all about each other and it was a relief to have outsiders to pick on in spite of the ignominy of having to sit down to meals with persons whose antecedents might be doubtful. Elberta Inn was of the old South. The inroad of Western and Northern capital had not touched the Maison Denton. To be sure the transients who occasionally bore down upon them were often northerners or westerners but they did not represent much capital or they would have put up at a first-class hotel. This the boarders who called Elberta Inn home year in and year out well understood and so it was all transients were more or less looked down upon. They were not rich or they would not be there and they were hardly well born, since they were not born in the South. Of course they sympathized with Miss Oleander in wanting to rent her rooms and the fact that a much higher board was charged transients than permanents made transients somewhat desirable if too long intervals did not elapse between their goings and comings.

All of the foregoing Josie gathered at her first dinner. She was introduced with great eclat by her hostess. The party was seated as she came into the dining room and down one side of the table and up the other Miss Oleander called the names, each time repeating Josie as

"Miss Blossom, Colonel Brent; Miss Blossom, Miss Kite-Smith; Miss Blossom, Mrs. Bucknow; Miss Blossom, Major Dugan; Miss Blossom, Mrs. Claiborne; Miss Blossom, Judge Tuttle; Miss Blossom, my father, Major Denton," and so forth and so on down a line of twenty.

Josie felt she had never been among so many titles in all her life. She recalled some lines from an opera of Gilbert and Sullivan's:

"The women have no titles but their names sound so aristocratic," she thought. "Why, oh, why did I choose such a silly name as Blossom? There were plenty of nice plain names that would have done me just as well and I wouldn't feel such a fool when I am introduced. I thought Miss Oleander would never get through calling out Blossom."

She was relieved to find that her henna wig was not so very much out of place. Miss Hite-Smith was blondined in the back, with a transformation in the front that did not quite match and all of the aristocratic dames had resorted to cosmetics of one kind or another. Powder predominated but an occasional dash of rouge gave color to the party.

Dinner was in courses, served by two colored maids whose social strata must have been about that of Betty's at Mrs. Pete's. To be sure they had on white caps and aprons, garnishings of which Betty boasted not, but their motions were reminiscent of the cornfield, as though they might still be walking over ploughed ground.

Josie could not help thinking that perhaps the grandfather, he of the hundreds of slaves and thousands of acres, would have turned over in his grave again if he could have seen the type of repast served on his beautiful old china. There was course after course but each was merely a sample, from soup to coffee. Josie remembered the heaping plate of cabbage and corned beef with the hunk of corn bread at Mrs. Pete's with regretful sentiment.

"Blossom, Blossom! Did I hear aright, young lady?" asked Judge Tuttle. "Is your name Blossom?"

"Yes, sir," said Josie, respectfully, but wishing in her heart the old gentleman would not insist on that absurd name, "Sally Blossom!"

"Ah, and from what part of the country do you come?"

"Washington," answered Josie, thankful that at one time she had lived there—was living there in fact when her father, Detective O'Gorman, died. "I have been in Dorfield lately, though, on business."

"My grandmother's maiden name was Blossom," continued the judge, "and strange to say, it was also Sally, or Sarah by the time she got to be my grandmother. But she was a Virginian, a Virginian of tide-water fame. What Blossom are you?"

"Just Blossom, sir; a blooming Blossom! My father was English," she said in desperation. "At least I think he was. He died before he was born—I mean I was born."

"Ah, very sad!" ventured the Judge and Miss Hite-Smith thought so too. Josie, for her part, thought he was much better dead—that fictitious Blossom. This questioning was more than she had bargained for. People usually let her do the questioning. She rather fancied it was the bobbed wig and the artificial complexion that made persons like the judge notice her.

"That is a beautiful old house on the corner near here," she ventured.

"You mean the Haskins?" spoke up Miss Denton. "Yes, it is very handsome, no doubt, but too ornate and pie-crusty for my—taste." Then a discussion ensued concerning architecture, old and new.

"I mean the house going East from this place," put in Josie, not at all interested in the Haskins house. "The old home with the ivy and the box-bushes in the yard."

"Oh, the Waller house!" said Major Denton. "That is perhaps the finest specimen of the old South left in the city. It was saved from the Yankee invasion by a piece of luck."

He then plunged into war reminiscences that lasted through three courses, his table companions listening with bored politeness.

"Do the same people still live there?" asked Josie, after Major Denton had fired the last shot for states' rights.

"Well, they do and they don't," began the Major.

"I can't see why you say they do," broke in Judge Tuttle. "Chester Hunt hasn't an ounce of Waller blood in his veins."

"Indeed he has," declared Mrs. Claiborne. "Chester Hunt's mother's great-grandmother was a niece of old Edmund Waller's, the English founder of the Waller family. That is a well-known fact."

"Ah, yes, a niece but—ah, well—the presence of ladies would deter my pressing my point," said Judge Tuttle, who then whispered sibilantly to a pink-cheeked old man across the table.

"As I was saying," continued Major Denton, "they do and they don't. The present occupant of the Waller mansion is a stepbrother of Stephen Waller's. He, poor fellow, was killed during the war, the world war, I mean, not the war between the states."

"Yes," breathed Josie, "and the stepbrother inherited his property?"

"Oh, no, there is a widow and two children. A very sad story, very sad! The widow has been crazed by grief and I hear is hopelessly insane. The two children have been placed in care of an excellent woman and are now living near their mother, so if she should ever ask for them they can be reached quickly. She has shown no sign as yet of wanting to see them. A sad case!"

"Yes, and I wouldn't trust those sanitariums," spoke Miss Oleander. "They are often very tricky."

"Neither would I," said a young woman across the table from Josie. Her name was Miss Chisholm and she had the distinction of being in business. The ladies at Miss Denton's were not the type to be in business.

"But Chester Hunt has been to the place again and again and says his step-sister-in-law is receiving every attention and is being watched with the greatest care. She is raving, so he says, and he is very sad over it. Chester Hunt is a fine young fellow in spite of the unkind things some persons say about his great-great-grandmother," declared Mrs. Claiborne, vindictively.

"I don't like him," asserted Miss Chisholm.

"Indeed!" and Mrs. Claiborne eyed Miss Chisholm through her lorgnette. "He is very popular with young ladies." There was a slight accent on the ladies.

"Popular enough with girls who see him in society but you ask stenographers how they like him," flushed Miss Chisholm.

"I am hardly likely to converse with stenographers on the subject of Mr. Hunt," was the insolent answer.

Josie determined to cultivate Miss Chisholm and to give Mrs. Claiborne a wide berth.

"Where has the poor lady been put?" Josie asked Miss Oleander,

"Somewhere in New York, I think!"

"Not at all! The place is an excellent one near Washington," said Mrs. Claiborne.

"Hunt told me himself it was in Indiana," said Judge Tuttle. "I had some business to settle for him. You see he is the executor and administrator of Stephen Waller's estate. Naturally he was appointed guardian of the children by the court.

"I understand they are a very unruly pair," went on Mrs. Claiborne. "It seems it was their selfishness and naughtiness that gave their poor mother her final breakdown. I hate to think it of Stephen Waller's children, but I hear it on all sides. Chester Hunt can hardly control himself when the subject comes up. He has done everything for them but they have behaved so very badly. Mother spoiled them, I reckon."

"Why, that's too bad," put in kind Miss Oleander. "I used to see them playing in their yard and I was much attracted by them. I don't see how such sweet-looking children could be so very naughty."

"Nonsense!" cried Miss Chisholm. "My cousin taught little Polly Waller and she says she was the most tractable child she has ever had in her class. The boy was too young for school, but I happened to hear his kindergarten teacher discussing the family with my cousin and she said Peter was a love of a boy and clever beyond anything. He is a born leader, so she said."

"They are sneaky," asserted Mrs. Claiborne. "I have heard of many sneaky underhand things they have done. Poor Chester Hunt, I don't envy him the job of guardian."

"Neither do I," said Josie to herself.

"He has had a great deal of trouble with servants lately," said Miss Hite-Smith. "I hear he is not trying to keep up the whole house but it takes several servants to maintain any kind of cleanliness in such a huge house. He is advertising for white maids, so I hear. It seems the colored ones think the place is haunted."

"He is advertising for white maids!" Josie repeated to herself.