Part 1 (1/2)
Vagabondia.
by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
This my first novel was written several years ago, and published (without any revision by me) first in a ladies' magazine under the name of ”Dorothea,” and afterwards in book form as ”Dolly.” For reasons not necessary to state here, all control over the book had pa.s.sed from my hands. It has been for some time out of print; but, having at last obtained control of the copyright, I have made such corrections as seemed advisable, given it the name I originally intended for it, and now issue it through my regular publishers.
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.
Was.h.i.+ngton, November, 1883.
VAGABONDIA.
CHAPTER I. ~ IN WHICH WE HOLD COUNSEL.
It was a nondescript sort of a room, taking it altogether. A big, sunny room, whose once handsome papering and corniceing had grown dingy, and whose rich carpeting had lost its color and pile in places, and yet a.s.serted its superiority to its surroundings with an air of lost grandeur in every shabby medallion. There were pictures in abundance on the walls, and more than one of them were gems in their way, despite the evidence all bore to being the work of amateurs. The tables were carved elaborately, and the faded, brocaded chairs were of the order _pouf_, and as inviting as they were disreputable in appearance; there was ma.n.u.script music among the general litter, a guitar hung from the wall by a tarnished blue and silver ribbon, and a violin lay on the piano; and yet, notwithstanding the air of free-and-easy disorder, one could hardly help recognizing a sort of vagabond comfort and luxury in the Bohemian surroundings. It was so very evident that the owners must enjoy life in an easy, light-hearted, though perhaps light-headed fas.h.i.+on; and it was also so very evident that their light hearts and light heads rose above their knowledge of their light purses.
They were congregated together now, holding a grand family council around the centre-table, and Dolly was the princ.i.p.al feature, as usual; and, embarra.s.sing as the subject of said council was, not one of them looked as if it was other than a most excellent joke that Dolly, having been invited into the camps of the Philistines, should find she had nothing to put on to grace the occasion. And as to Dolly,--well, that young person stood in the midst of them in her shabby, Frenchy little hat, slapping one pink palm with a shabby, shapely kid glove, her eyes alight, her comical dismay and amus.e.m.e.nt displaying itself even in the arch of her brows.
”And so the Philistine leader pounced upon me herself,” she was saying.
”You know the 'Ark,' Phil? Well, they were all in the Ark,--the Rev.
Bilberry in front, and the boys and girls filling up the corners; so you may imagine the effect produced when they stopped, and Lady Augusta bent over the side to solemnly proclaim her intention of inviting me to partake of coffee and conversation on Friday night, with an air of severely wondering whether I would dare to say 'No!'”
”Why did n't you say it?” said Aimee. ”You know it will be an awful bore, Dolly. Those Bilberry clan gatherings always are. You have said so yourself often enough.”
”Of course I have,” returned Dolly. ”And of course it will be, but it would be dreadfully indiscreet to let the Bilberry element know I thought so. The Bilberry doors once closed against us, where is our respectability, and Phil's chance of success among the Philistines? It is bad enough, of course, but there is reason to be thankful that I am the only victim. The rest of you would be sure to blunder into the B.
B. B.'s [meaning the Bilberry black books], and that _would_ be an agreeable state of affairs. 'Toinette, look at Tod, he is sitting in the coal-box eating Phil's fusees.”
In 'Toinette we find Mrs. Phil, a handsome creature, young enough to have been in the school-room, but with the face and figure of a Greek G.o.ddess, and a pair of eyes lovely enough to haunt one's dreams as a memory for a lifetime, and as to the rest, an inconsistent young madcap, whose beauty and spirit seemed only a necessary part of the household arrangements, and whose son and heir, in the person of the enterprising Tod (an abbreviate of Theodore), was the source of unlimited domestic enjoyment and the object of much indiscreet adoration. It was just like Philip Crewe, this marrying on probabilities; and it was equally like the rest of them to accept the state of affairs as an excellent joke, and regard the result as an exquisite piece of pleasantry. 'Toinette herself was only another careless, unworldly addition to the family circle, and enjoyed her position as thoroughly as the rest did; and as to Tod, what a delicate satire upon responsibilities Tod was, and how tranquilly he comported himself under a _regime_ which admitted of free access into dangerous places, and a lack of personal restraint which allowed him all the joys the infantile mind can revel in!
At Dolly's exclamation Toinette rushed at him in his stronghold, and extricated him from the coal-box with demonstrations of dismay.
”Look at his white dress!” she wailed pathetically. ”I only put it on a few minutes ago; and he has eaten two dozen fusees, if this was n't an empty box when he found it. I hope they won't disagree with him, Phil.”
”They won't,” said Phil, composedly. ”Nothing does. Dust him, and proceed to business. I want to hear the rest of Dolly's story.”
”I _think_,” said Mollie, ”that he ate Shem and Ham this morning, for I could only find j.a.pheth after he had been playing with his Noah's Ark.
Go on, Dolly.”
”Wait until I have taken off my things,” said Dolly, ”and then we 'll talk it over. We must talk it over, you know, if I am to go.”
She took off her hat, and then laid her shawl aside,--a little scarlet shawl, draped about her figure and tossed over one shoulder smartly, and by no means ungracefully,--and so stood revealed; and it must be admitted she was well worth looking at. Not a beauty, but a fresh, wholesome little body, with a real complexion, an abundance of hair, and large-irised, wide-awake eyes, changeable as to color, because capricious in expression; the sort of girl, in fact, who would be likely to persuade people ultimately that, considering circ.u.mstances, absolute beauty could be easily dispensed with, and, upon the whole, would rather detract from the general charm of novelty, which, in her case, reigned supreme.
”It is n't the mere fact of being a beauty that makes women popular,”
she would say; ”it's the being able to persuade people that you are one,--or better than one. Don't some historians tell us that Cleopatra had red hair and questionable eyes, and yet she managed to blind the world so completely, that no one is sure whether it is true or not, and to this day the generality of people are inclined to believe that it was her supernatural beauty that dragged Marc Antony to the dust at her feet.”
Aimee's face was more nearly perfect than Dolly's; Mollie's was more imposing, child as she was; 'Toi-nette threw her far into the shade in the matter of statuesque splendor; but still it was Dolly who did all the difficult things, and had divers tragic adventures with questionable adorers, whose name was legion, and who were a continual source of rejoicing and entertainment to the family.