Belles on Their Toes (8 page)

“Goodness, it won’t come below your knees,” Mother laughed. “It’s a one-piece suit.”

“One piece?” Anne and Ernestine shouted together.

“No girls wear those old-fashioned two-piece suits any more, do they?” Mother asked.

“We do,” said Ernestine. “Remember Dad’s rules.”

“Modesty,” Anne recited flatly. “Skirts at least to the knees. Black stockings. And a minimum of skin showing.”

“Times change,” Mother told them, “and your father would have changed with them. In most things, he was a good bit ahead of his time. I’ll admit he usually stayed pretty far behind them when it came to how his daughters should dress.”

Martha held up the suit. It was light blue, and had a lowcut neck.

“If you say, ‘On your mark, get set, go’ to me,” Ernestine told her, “I’ll scratch your eyes out.”

“You’ll have to beat me to them,” said Anne. “Besides, my fingernails are longer.”

Martha looked at the two oldest girls, and there was sympathy in her glance.

“I wonder if the budget couldn’t stand new suits for Anne and Ernestine,” she asked.

“Those old maids would be too modest,” Frank put in.

The two girls didn’t say anything, but they looked at Mother.

“I believe the budget can stand a knife for each of the boys,” Mother said. “But I don’t believe we need any more bathing suits.”

She handed Anne and Ernestine each a package like Martha’s.

7.
Belles on Their Toes

W
ITH MOTHER HOME, THE
girls-self-imposed ban on dating was automatically lifted. Anne and Ernestine went back into circulation, hopefully rejoining their beach crowd of previous summers.

The competition was unusually stiff, because there were about three times as many girls as boys. Most of last summer’s crop of males were now in college and had summer jobs on the mainland. It was apparent that in order to get rings on their fingers, belles would have to be on their toes.

Morton Dykes, besides being tall and good looking, had brought a Hupmobile roadster to the island and had rented a motorboat. So he had long since been admitted—in fact shanghaied—into the crowd. The group collected each morning, before going into the water, in a hollow formed by three sand dunes, near the Cliff Beach Bathhouse. Of all the sheiks encamped on those semisecluded sands, Morton had amassed the largest and most eager harem.

But in spite of the manpower shortage, Anne at first wouldn’t have anything to do with him.

Anne may not have been a raging beauty, but she was no strain at all upon the eyes, especially in her new bathing suit. Also, there is a possibility that Morton had become tired of having a half-dozen panting females hurrying to strike a match, every time he put a cigarette in his mouth. In any event, he did every thing he could to get back in Anne’s good graces.

“I don’t see why you always give me the cold shoulder,” he told Anne one morning, sitting down beside her on the sand.

“If I weren’t a lady,” said Anne, “I’d give you something that started from the shoulder. And the result would be even colder.”

“I don’t see what you’re sore about.”

“Look,” Anne whispered. “There are at least fifteen beautiful women here who are dying for you to come and sit with them. Why don’t you go make one of them supremely happy? And leave me alone.”

“But I’ve just known them for a few weeks, and you and I are old buddies.”

“My Buddy,” Anne said sarcastically. “You’d better shove off, Buddy, before your mother sees you associating with the lower classes.”

“You mean on the boat?” Morton asked. “Listen, I’ve been wanting to tell you about that.”

“If you think there’s anything to be ashamed of in a large family,” Anne told him hotly, “you’re a bigger wet smack than I think you are.”

“And that,” called Ernestine, who was sitting a few feet away, “would set a world’s record.”

“It wasn’t your family,” Morton insisted, dropping his voice so that only Anne could hear. “It was that loud-mouthed little fugitive from the old folks’ home, with the cat on his shoulder.”

“You’re talking about the man I love,” Anne warned, but the shortage of boys was acute, and she seemed to be weakening. “We’re all crazy about Tom, and he’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I hadn’t heard about your father, and I never had met him. And I saw that man. And I thought … and, well, and Mother thought …”

“I don’t believe you’d better tell me what you thought or your mother thought,” Anne said. “I don’t believe I’d consider it flattering, and I have a strong feeling that Tom wouldn’t either.”

“Let’s forget it,” Morton smiled. “Relax and have a smoke. And let’s be friends, eh?”

He reached for a package of cigarettes, while a bevy of females, who hadn’t missed a thing, clutched for their matches. Anne looked quickly around the tops of the sand dunes, to make sure none of her brothers were spying.

“Okay, Buddy,” she grinned. “Light it for me, will you?”

He put two cigarettes in his mouth, chose among five biasing matches that were being poked into his face, lighted both smokes, and handed one to Anne. She took two long puffs and inhaled deeply.

“That’s the first cigarette I’ve had since I left Northampton,” she said contentedly. “It tastes fine.” She took another drag and inhaled again.

Ernestine, whose mouth had dropped open, watched admiringly and enviously as Anne puffed, expertly knocked off the ashes with her little finger, and finally flicked the butt over a dune.

“I didn’t know you did that,” Ernestine whispered, sidling over to Anne. “You go at it as if you’ve had plenty of experience.”

“What are you talking about?” Anne asked innocently. “Go at what?”

“You know very well what I mean. Puffing away at that cigarette like a dope fiend. I didn’t know you dissipated.”

“There’s lots of things you don’t know about me. Besides, everybody smokes in college.”

“Can I have one?”

“You’re not in college.”

“Can I just try one?” Ernestine whispered.

“I should say not. It’s going to be bad enough when I tell Mother I smoke, without having to confess anything about ruining your morals.”

“Anybody,” Ern asked loudly, “got a ciggie?”

“Let her have one,” said Morton, who had heard most of the whispering. “Here, Kid.”

He tossed her his package, and a box of unused matches.

“I seem to have left mine at home,” Ernestine said.

She took out a cigarette and tapped one end of it on the thumbnail of her left hand, as she had seen Morton do. Then she tapped the other end. She put it a third of the way into the center of her mouth and lighted it.

“Put that out,” Anne said in her ear. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself. You’re supposed to smoke those things, not eat them.”

No one except Anne was paying any attention.

Ernestine puffed, without inhaling, and took the cigarette from her mouth.

“That certainly,” she said loudly, spitting out flecks of tobacco that were clinging to her lips and tongue, “soothes my jangled nerves. Nothing’s worse than when you run out of ciggies.”

“Ciggies,” Anne whispered. “My cow!”

“What makes it do like that?” Ernestine asked her, contemplating the brownish, unraveled end that had been in her mouth. “It’s all coming apart.”

“You’re supposed to hold it in your lips, not your tonsils,” Anne said. “If you’re going to smoke, at least wait until I show you how, and stop humiliating me in public.”

Ernestine thought there was merit to that suggestion. She placed the moist fag between her thumb and middle finger, optimistically took sight on the top of the tallest dune, and flicked. The cigarette shredded open and landed six inches from her hand, where she buried it quickly in the sand.

Later that morning, on the way home from the beach, Anne told Ern she had started smoking about six months before, and had intended to break the news to Dad when she got home for summer vacation. After Dad died, she hadn’t wanted to add to Mother’s immediate worries, so she didn’t say anything about it.

“Everybody smokes all the time at college,” she said. “I didn’t my freshman year, but it’s hard to keep refusing them, like a wet blanket.”

“Did you get the habit?” Ern wanted to know.

“Sometimes,” Anne admitted, “I’d get rid of a pack a week.”

“It gets a grip on you all right,” Ernestine agreed. “I believe I’ve got the habit from that first one. I’m dying for another right now.”

“You might have got the chewing habit, but I don’t see how you could have got the smoking habit. You’re not supposed to suck them, you know.”

“I do now,” Ernestine nodded. “Are you going to tell Mother about your smoking?”

“Our smoking, you mean,” said Anne. And then imitating Ern: “‘I seem to have left my ciggies at home.’
Please,
don’t ever call them that again!”

“Well, are you going to tell her?”

“I suppose so,” Anne admitted. “Eventually. I don’t like to do anything behind her back.”

She fished in the pocket of her beach coat, where there were a package of cigarettes Morton had given her, and a package of Lifesavers she had bought at the bathhouse.

“Meanwhile,” she said, offering the Lifesavers to Ern, “we’d better have a couple of these.”

At Mother’s suggestion, the two oldest girls had moved their belongings out to one of the lighthouses, so they could sleep later in the mornings. Mother thought they were entitled to some quiet and privacy, after being in charge while she was in Europe.

In the lighthouse, Anne kept her promise that very night and taught Ernestine how to smoke. Ernestine was not a particularly apt pupil, but had a strong thirst for knowledge. The girls used up more than half of the package of cigarettes, before Anne deemed her sufficiently checked out to solo.

“And I want you to give me your word,” Anne said, “that you won’t smoke at least until you’re in college.”

“You mean not for a whole year?” Ernestine asked. “No, sir. I couldn’t make any promise like that.”

“Oh, one or two a week when you’re out on a date or something, might be all right. But no more than that. And not where Martha and the boys can see you.”

“One or two a week would be fine,” Ernestine agreed. “Just enough to soothe the craving inside of me.”

“We don’t want to set a bad example. After all, look what happened when you saw me light one.”

“I promise,” Ernestine said solemnly.

The girls had kissed Mother goodnight before going to the lighthouse, which was within a few feet of The Shoe. Ordinarily, Mother went to bed about nine o’clock, read sleepily for half an hour—her only free time of the day—and then fell asleep. She usually got up at 5:30 or 6 in the morning, to be with the younger children.

That night, for some reason, she had been restless. Reading hadn’t made her sleepy. She was lonesome, and wanted company. All the younger children had gone to bed, but she saw from her window that a streak of light was coming from under the door of the lighthouse. Mother put on her bathrobe and slippers, and headed for the lighthouse to chat with the girls.

Mother thought that children were entitled to privacy, just as much as adults, and never went busting, or tiptoeing either, into anyone’s room. So, while several feet away from the lighthouse, she stopped and called softly.

“Girls. Annie, Ern. Yoohoo. It’s Mother. May I come in?”

There was no immediate response from the interior, where the girls were ducking out their cigarettes, hiding the ashtray under Anne’s bed, filling their mouths with Lifesavers, and waving towels to try to get some of the smoke out the window.

“It’s Mother,” she called again. “May I come in?”

“Come on in, Mother,” Anne called heartily, going to the door. “I thought I heard someone calling before, but I wasn’t sure.”

Mother started up the steps and into the lighthouse, which was blue with smoke.

“I wasn’t sleepy,” she explained, “and I saw your light on. I thought I’d just come out for a visit, if you two aren’t too tired. I really haven’t had a good chance to talk with …”

The full impact of the smoke hit her as she entered the door, and she coughed.

“Something’s on fire,” she shouted. “Don’t you girls smell it?”

“No it isn’t,” said Anne. “Something was on fire. It’s out now.”

“Whew,” whistled Mother, sitting down on Ernestine’s cot. “It scared me half to death. What happened?”

“Well,” Anne blushed, “I may as well tell you now. I’ve been smoking. I was going to tell you about it. I was going to tell you tomorrow—or the next day, anyway.”

“Smoking,” said Mother. “So that’s it.” She choked and coughed. “Why there’s enough smoke in this room to nominate Mister Harding.”

“I’ve been smoking too,” Ernestine said miserably. “I was going to tell you, too.”

“It’s my fault, I guess,” Anne said. “I taught her how.”

It was obvious Mother didn’t like it. Her first impulse may have been to weep, to protest, to implore, to scold. But she knew that what she said was going to be important in her future relationship with the girls. So she didn’t weep, and she didn’t say anything until she had taken time to think the matter through.

“In my day,” she finally began, “nice girls didn’t smoke. I know that’s all changed. It’s a mistake for me to look at it in terms of what was right in my day. I still don’t approve, and it wouldn’t be honest for me to make believe I did.”

“You make me feel like a dog,” said Anne, almost in tears. “If you want, I’ll promise never to do it again.”

“I don’t approve of promises like that,” Mother told her. “Most people smoke nowadays, and it’s not right when parents make children promise not to do things that most people do.”

“Besides, she might break the promise,” Ernestine put in. “Those ciggies get a terrible hold on you, Mother.”

“When did you find that out, dear?” asked Mother, with some concern.

“Today,” said Ernestine.

“That’s not so bad, then,” Mother smiled. “Maybe you can even break the hold—for a couple of years, anyway.”

“I could fight against it,” Ernestine conceded.

“I’ve been trying to think up some good arguments against smoking,” Mother said, “but when you analyze them, they don’t seem too convincing.”