CHAPTER XXV
THE LOVING CUP
“Hurry, hurry!” cried Tavia, hugging Dorothy. “You awful girl! I’ve been doing everything under the skies to help Aunt Winnie get through the dinner, but I absolutely refuse to carry along the dance! How could you place us all in such a predicament, you angel of mercy! And to leave me to manage those boys in their evening dress! They’re too funny for words! Nat positively looks weird in his; he insists on pulling down the tails, he’s afraid they don’t hang gracefully! And Ned is as stiff and awkward as a small boy at his first party!”
“And Bob?” asked Dorothy, as she arranged a band of gold around her hair.
“Well,” said Tavia meditatively, “there might be a more uncomfortable-looking person than Bob is at this moment, but I never hope to see one. Dorothy, I simply can’t look his way! He’s pathetic, he’s all hands, and he’s trying to hide the fact, and you never saw anyone having so much trouble! In short, I’ve been scrupulously evading those very much dressed-up youths. They’ve been depending entirely on me to push them forward; just at present, with other awkward youths, they are holding up the fireplace in the little side room, casting fugitive glances toward the drawing room, where we’re having the dance!” Tavia laughed and pranced about as she talked.
“Why will our boys always act so silly in the evening? I really believe if dances were given in the morning, directly after breakfast, the girls would be dull and listless and the men enchanting,” said Dorothy with a laugh, as she stood forth, resplendent in her evening gown of pale blue, ready to make a tardy appearance.
The late arrival of the girl whom all these guests were invited to meet, caused a stir of merriment, which Dorothy met with a certain charm and grace, that was her direct inheritance from Aunt Winnie.
The boys emerged from the side room and looked around the dancing room, sheepishly. Now, in North Birchland and in Dalton, Ned and Nat enjoyed a dance, or a party, even if they did show a decided tendency to hide behind Dorothy and Aunt Winnie. But here in New York they were not gallant enough to hide their misery, and the comfortable back of Aunt Winnie was not at all at their disposal, and Tavia’s back they had given up some hours since as hopeless, which left Dorothy as the last thin straw! And Dorothy was too much of a wisp of straw to hide such broad shoulders as Bob’s and Ned’s and entirely too short to hide tall Nat! So they clung together in a corner until Tavia separated them, giving each young man a charming girl to pilot over the slippery floor through the maze of a two-step.
Tavia was bubbling over with mirth. All this was as much to her liking – the lovely gowns and the laughter, the easy wit and light chatter.
“Did you notice that big suit-case in the hall?” whispered Tavia, mysteriously to Dorothy.
“Yes, indeed,” replied Dorothy. “Are some of these people staying over the week-end?”
“Sh-h-h!” warned Tavia, leading Dorothy to a secluded corner behind a tall palm, “I’m really afraid to say it out loud!”
“This isn’t a dark mystery, I hope. Tavia, I’m weary of sudden surprises – tell me at once,” demanded Dorothy, laughing at Tavia’s very dramatic manner of being securely hidden from view.
With one slender finger, Tavia pointed between the leaves of the palm to the dancing floor.
“Do you see that very picturesque creature in green?” she whispered.
“Yes,” said Dorothy breathlessly.
“Well,” said Tavia relaxing, “that’s her suit-case.”
“Who is she?” asked Dorothy, “and why bring her bag here?”
“She’s a society girl,” replied Tavia, peering out between the palm leaves, “and she arrived at four o’clock this afternoon with a maid and a suit-case.”
“Auntie said nothing about week-end guests,” said Dorothy.
“Of course she didn’t, and this isn’t a week-end guest, this is a society girl! She couldn’t play cards at four, and have dinner at seven, and a dance at eight-thirty, without a suit-case and a maid; could she? How unreasonable you are, Dorothy,” exclaimed Tavia, with scorn.
“Did she wear something different for each occasion?” whispered Dorothy.
“Yes,” replied Tavia. “Dorothy, doesn’t it make you dizzy to think of keeping up an appearance in that way – packing one’s suit-case every morning to attend an evening function!”
“And she doesn’t seem to be having an awfully good time either,” commented Dorothy.
“Everyone is afraid of her – she’s too wonderful!” laughed Tavia.
“How perfectly ridiculous!” murmured Dorothy, thinking at that moment of Tommy’s mother, dressed in a faded, worn wrapper every hour of each day throughout all the months of the year.
“And that isn’t all,” declared Tavia. “See that perfectly honest-looking person in purple?”
“Very broad and stout and homely?” asked Dorothy.
“Yes. Well, she appropriated one of our cups!”
“You’re just making these things up!” declared Dorothy, rising to leave the secluded corner.
“Really I’m not,” said Tavia earnestly, “the purple person took a cup!”
“But why should she do so?” Dorothy asked, not quite believing such a thing possible.
“That’s what we don’t know, but Aunt Winnie says it’s possibly just a fad, or a hobby, and not to notice it – but, I’m going to find out.”
“There is so much that is not real, perhaps her royal purple velvet gown is no clue to her wealth,” said Dorothy.
“No, I don’t think her dress is. I’ve decided that she needs the cup for breakfast to-morrow morning. Anyhow, her maid is in the small bedroom, that we’re using for the wraps, and we must question her,” declared Tavia.
“It’s too perfectly horrid to even think such a thing of one of our guests. We must forget the matter,” Dorothy said rather sternly.
“And you who are so anxious to help the poor and needy, forget your own home!” said Tavia reproachfully. “Suppose that poor lady has no cup for her coffee? Won’t it be an act of human kindness to ascertain that?”
“Well, I don’t understand why it should happen,” said Dorothy, perplexed, “but I feel, Tavia, that you are not in earnest.”
Coming out from behind the palm, the girls were just in time to catch a glimpse of Nat, bowing and sliding gracefully away from his partner. Ned had successfully gotten over the slippery floor and stood aimlessly staring into space; and his aimless stare touched Dorothy more than his tears would have done. Bob met Tavia in the slipperiest part of the floor and Tavia, for once in her acquaintance with Bob, did not feel disdainful of his masterly physical strength, for Bob couldn’t manage to cross a waxed floor with as much dexterity as could Tavia and actually touched her elbow for assistance in guiding him wall-ward.
“How much longer does this gaiety continue?” asked Bob.
“I fear you’re a sad failure, Bob,” cried Tavia, as she led him through the hall to the small room at the end of the hall. “You can’t dance, and you won’t sing, and you’re perfectly miserable dressed in civilized, evening clothes. You’re just hopeless, I’m afraid,” Tavia sighed.
Their sudden entrance into the cloakroom surprised the various maids who were yawning and sleepy-eyed. The French maid was the only one who seemed alert, and she was bending attentively over something, with her back toward the others. Tavia whispered to Bob:
“Saunter carelessly past that maid, and tell me what she’s doing,” Tavia meanwhile diligently looking through a pile of furs and wraps.
“She seems to be fingering a cup,” reported Bob, as he looked at Tavia, questioningly.
“Walk past her again and find out more,” commanded Tavia. To herself she murmured: “Men are so slow, I’d know in an instant what she’s doing with that cup, were it possible for me to peer about; which it isn’t.”
“Haven’t an idea what she’s doing,” reported Bob again, “she’s just holding the cup in her hand.”
“Nonsense,” declared Tavia, “she must be doing something. Go right straight back and stand around until you find out. I can’t pull these furs and wraps about much longer, they’re too heavy!”
When Bob returned again he whispered to Tavia, and Tavia’s straight eyebrows flew up toward her hair with a decidedly “Ah! I told you!” expression.
She rushed to Aunt Winnie and informed her.
“You know,” explained Aunt Winnie, “the cup is the one Miss Mingle’s sister painted and sent to Dorothy the other day. It was such an odd, exquisite pattern I valued it above all my antiques and my pottery!”
“Well, that’s just what’s she doing,” declared Tavia, “she’s copying the pattern or borrowing it.”
“It must indeed be unique when one of our guests is driven to such extremes to get a copy of it,” said Aunt Winnie.
The dancers were becoming weary, even the lights and decorations began to show signs of wishing to go out, and most of the guests had bidden the hostesses adieu when the stout person in royal purple calmly approached Aunt Winnie and Dorothy, holding a cup in her hand:
“You’ll pardon the impudence of my maid, I know, she has a mania for peculiar patterns on china, and she copied one on this cup. You don’t mind at all?” she asked sweetly.
“It was painted for my niece by a very feeble lady,” explained Mrs. White. “We value it highly.”
“You should value it highly,” purred the stout person. “So far as I know there are only three cups of that pattern in the world to-day. One is in an English museum, and the other two have been lost. Those two cups would be worth a fortune to the holder, the collectors would pay almost any price for them.” She was plainly an enthusiast on the subject of old china. “But your cup is not original, it is merely a copy, but we knew it instantly. You’ll forgive me, won’t you?” she asked, sweetly.
“Miss Mingle’s sister is the owner of the other two cups, Auntie,” gasped Dorothy, as the stout person in purple departed. “Mrs. Bergham’s husband was an artist and collector, and he left Mrs. Bergham all his pictures and art treasures. I just raved with delight over those two cups, the day we called, and she very amiably sent me an exact duplicate.”
“Then there may be a fortune awaiting little Miss Mingle,” exclaimed Tavia. “I thought her home was terribly crowded with artistic-looking objects and unusual adornments for folk in moderate circumstances.”
“Doubtlessly, the sentimental nature of Mrs. Bergham would not entertain such an idea as disposing of her treasures for mere lucre,” said Mrs. White, laughingly.
“Perhaps they do not know their value,” reasoned Dorothy, as the guests prepared to leave.
“We’ll find out more from the stout person, and bring an art collector to call upon Mrs. Bergham, and thus give those two struggling women some chance to enjoy a little comfort,” said Major Dale.
CHAPTER XXVI
A NEW COLLECTOR
“My poor, dear husband,” sighed Mrs. Bergham, “he told me to never part with those two cups, in fact, never to sell anything of his unless I could get his catalogue price. But it was a hard struggle, and I did love everything so much, that – well, I simply did not bother about selling.”
“I can hardly believe those old cups can be so valuable,” Miss Mingle exclaimed, as she handled them.
“Well,” said Dorothy, as she and Mrs. White and Tavia prepared to leave after their short call, “we will have a collector call to place a value on all your antiques, if you wish. Of course, it will be hard to part with them, but when the financial end is considered – ”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Bergham, with more animation than she had yet shown, “you don’t know what it will mean to us to have enough money to go ’round! And to have my little boys with me again, and sister relieved of the awful strain!”
“Wasn’t it lovely for the stout guest in purple to kindly borrow the cup!” exclaimed Tavia.
“And for you to follow up the clue,” said Mrs. White, “when Dorothy and I were too embarrassed to know what to do!”
“Oh, by the way,” continued Mrs. White, “about an agent for this house, I thought – don’t be offended dear Mrs. Bergham – but I thought you might like to take charge of this property, with plenty of assistants of course, and to have your commission, the same as paying a real estate agent. Don’t say you won’t help me! I really need someone right on the premises.”
“Certainly,” promptly replied Miss Mingle, “sister could take care of it. You see, sister has lost all confidence in herself and her ability – we have had such troublous times for five years past!”
“This matter was even more serious than I dared say,” exclaimed Mrs. White, referring to the apartment-house trouble. “You know the house originally belonged to my husband’s ancestors, it was one of the old Dutch mansions here in New York, and as the years passed, it was remodeled several times, finally coming to me, with the proviso that it be again remodeled into a good paying apartment house, as an investment for the boys when they are of age. The income, as you know, has barely kept the expenses covered, and I began to fear that my boys would come of age without the money they should have.”
“I did not know that,” exclaimed Dorothy. “So we really saved Nat and Ned from financial disasters; didn’t we?”
“Well, we don’t know yet, whether we will ever receive the money Mr. Akerson took,” said Mrs. White, gravely. “But we will know just as soon as we return home. At any rate, a future is assured the boys, now that we have taken the collecting away from Mr. Akerson.”
Arriving home, the girls found Major Dale and the boys anxiously waiting for them.
“Well, we’re safe at last,” cried Ned, “thanks to the courageous efforts of two little girls!”
“We bow before two small thoughtful heads,” said Major Dale, with a laugh, “while we men were trying to think out a way, the girls rushed ahead and beat us!”
“So it’s settled?” said Aunt Winnie, anxiously.
“Every penny,” exclaimed Major Dale.
“When we are of age,” declared Ned, “the girls shall have all their hearts desire; eh, Nat?”
“Yes, because without Dorothy’s and Tavia’s courage and thoughtfulness and quick wits, we boys would have had little to begin life with, in all probability.”
“And girls,” said Aunt Winnie, “the sweetest memories of your trip to New York City will be that you not only had a lovely good time, but helped wherever you saw that help was needed.”
“So that,” cried Major Dale, “Dorothy in the city was as happy as everywhere else!”
“Happier, Daddy,” cried his daughter, with her arms around his neck. “Much happier, for I helped someone.”
“As you always do,” murmured Tavia. “I wonder whom you will help next; or what you will do? Dorothy Dale! If only I could have the faculty of falling into things, straightening them out, and making everybody live happier ever after, as you do, I’m sure I would be the happiest person alive.”</