From the Improvement Era, February 1941–

If you have any grand notions of glamour and sophistication you will be interested in this story of –

Discovery

By Christine Whiting Parmenter

It’s terribly hard to appear sophisticated for any length of time unless you’re born that way. I discovered this truth one spring day when Gardner called up to say that for business reason she had to spend the week-end with a wealthy client.

“You understand, darling, that only the hope of landing this big job would tempt me to miss our day together?”

Right then I got a surprise, for instead of being disappointed I was filled with an unexplainable relief! This actually shocked me; but I managed to reply that of course I understood, and had sense enough to add that I’d miss him frightfully.

Gardner laughed, the suppressed, well-bred laugh that is one of his fascinations.

“Thanks,” he responded. “Don’t forget that I’ll be missing something, too! But you’ll lunch with me on Monday, Vera. Promise?”

I promised, and hung up, almost frightened at my reaction to this change of plan, yet thinking: “An entire day to myself! How wonderful!”

It wasn’t until I awoke next day that I began to feel lonesome. I’d been dreaming about the grandmother who “brought me up” after my mother died. Grandma had on a gray percale work dress with an apron tied round her waist and was frying pancakes at the range, just the way she used to winter mornings, when the door opened and in walked Gardner’s mother wearing a sable coat and a hat straight from Paris! She stood in the doorway a moment, and then, raising a lorgnette, looked Grandma over from head to foot with such a haughty, superior expression on her beautifully massaged face that it made my blood boil; I’d just cried out; “Don’t look at my grandmother like that! I won’t stand for it!” when I awoke, thankful enough to find it was a dream.

But it set me pondering. There was no danger of that awful dream coming true because Gardner’s mother never stirs more than a few miles from the old family home where she lives with her sister, surrounded (this was surmise on my part, Gardner being too well-bred to mention such a fact) by swarms of respectful servants; but I couldn’t help wondering if the strain of living up to that atmosphere for the rest of my life wouldn’t wear me into an early grave.

Now don’t make any mistake. I adore Gardner. He’s the sort of fellow every girl dreams about and never expects to find; but I knew perfectly well that he wouldn’t have fallen for little me if Fate hadn’t sent Polly Sanders across my path in the first place. The third time I lunched with Polly she said:

“You’d be awfully cute, Vera, if you didn’t appear so painfully wholesome; but you’ll never succeed in this hard-boiled world while you look as if you’d been raised on Jersey milk and home-picked vegetables. You wait,” said Polly.” Give me a few hours –”

Well, before I knew what was happening she had me ruining a good five-dollar bill at a cosmetic counter; and by noon next day my own grandmother wouldn’t have recognized me.

Of course, Gardner has been taking me somewhere every week in his car. Once, some weeks ago, we passed a little old farmhouse with a neglected garden that made me want to cry. It was on the tip of my tongue to say: “Oh, do let’s stop and explore that darling place!” when I realized that Gardner wouldn’t appreciate it, and kept still, which is just as well, for after a minute or two he said, himself: “I imagine some long-haired, artistic freak would like to buy that wreck of a home we passed back there and fix it up. Some people are just that crazy.”

But ever since, I’d been sort of haunted by that old house; and all of a sudden I knew what I’d do with my free Saturday. I’d put up a lunch (Gardner regards picnics as the last word in feeble-mindedness), take a bus out to that lovely, neglected place, and weed the garden!

I hadn’t been so thrilled since the day Gardner gave me my ring. I hurried to prepare for my adventure. I completely forgot Polly’s warning about water being bad for the complexion and scrubbed my face the way Grandma taught me to when I was eight. I dived into my trunk and dragged out a blouse – discarded because it made me look about twelve years old – and a hat I’d never worn for the same reason. Then I dusted my long-unused sport shoes, fixed the lunch, and without so much as a glance in the mirror, said goodbye to sophistication for the day.

It was a heavenly morning. With all the stops it took considerably more than an hour to reach the crossroads where Gardner and I had passed the bus that day, but I remembered the place distinctly. For a few moments I watched my chariot disappearing in the distance, and then started eagerly down the road that led to “my own house.”

You see, I was calling it that for fun, so I’d enjoy this expedition more; and as I strolled along, drinking in the delicious country odors, I couldn’t help wishing that Gardner wasn’t so darned sophisticated, so we could buy that place and fix it for a home, for that old house was even lovelier than I remembered. I sank down on the top step of the latticed porch and stayed there for ten minutes before I got up and turned the doorknob. To my surprise the door swung back rustily. What luck! I’d never expected to really explore inside.

When I came out again I felt so hungry that I extracted a cookie from my box and munched it slowly, thinking how wonderful it was to eat outdoors without considering what people would say if they saw you. Then I remembered that what I came for was to weed the garden, and I carried my things around to the side porch, when something startled me.

It was a sort of clang, as if a workman had dropped his shovel against a hoe, and as I stood there listening, a man stepped from behind a clump of purple lilacs and, getting down on his knees, began to clean away the leaves that had collected about their roots. He wore blue overalls and a shabby old slouch hat, and was altogether too absorbed to notice that a lone woman was trespassing on his property.

I’ll confess right now that tears of disappointment almost blinded me. The whole day was in ruins, for I could hardly ask a perfect stranger to let me help fix up his flowerbeds!

Then, suddenly, I realized that the man had seen me. He was sitting back on his heels, evidently a bit surprised, as he had the right to be, Under the circumstances it seemed only decent to explain my presence, but as I went down the grass-grown path I hardly looked at him, but I heard a voice, every bit as pleasant and well modulated as Gardner’s, say:

“Isn’t that a perfect peach of a lilac bush?”

I wheeled about, more startled than I had been before, and heard him say, in a surprised tone:

“What have you done to yourself, Vera? I didn’t know you! And how in the name of miracles did you ever find me?”

I had to wink my eyes to be sure I wasn’t dreaming before I answered: “I didn’t try to find you, I – I came out here to weed these flowerbeds.”

Said Gardner, with strange irrelevance, still dazed, but gazing down at me intently: “Do you know, darling, you look simply swell without make-up! What makes you use it?”

I was too astonished to retort; and, anyway, my eyes were riveted on the perfectly disreputable hat he had tossed on to a bush.

“Is – is that your hat, Gardner?” I stammered, almost ashamed to voice the base suspicion.

Gardner laughed, not a suppressed, well-bred laugh at all, but as if he couldn’t help himself. I’d no idea he had it in him to laugh like that.

“It is,” he admitted, “and these are my overalls, Vera, and my nice blue work shirt; and these are my own loved tennis shoes, darling, a relic of happier days, if you must know the worst.”

Of course it was silly of me, but when he said “happier days” like that, I began to cry. I see now that I was all stirred up; and Gardner picked me right off my feet and set me down on the side porch.

“Skip the emotion, Vera,” he commanded, almost roughly. “We’ve been engaged four months, haven’t we? Isn’t it about time we got acquainted?”

“But –” (I was wiping the foolish tears out of my eyes), “but, Gardner, you were so – so awfully correct!”

He laughed then and squeezed my hand. “You talk,” he told me,” as if I resembled an illustration or an advertisement. Look here, young lady, what about yourself? Sometimes I’ve wondered how anything so utterly sophisticated could be so genuinely sweet. Why, for six weeks, Vera, I’ve been practically praying for courage to ask you to leave off some of it when we go to see Mother. You see, she–”

“Your mother!” I broke in, not realizing till later that I was thinking about my dream. “Why, she has facial massages and Paris hats and a lorgnette –”

I stopped short because Gardner was looking a little wild, as if he suspected me of going crazy or something.

“When did this curious aberration descend on you?” he questioned. “My mother’s the simplest soul that ever lived. She wouldn’t recognize a Paris hat if she met one on the Rue de la Paix. She wears gold-rimmed spectacles. She adores to putter around the kitchen or her garden –”

“Kitchen!” I cried, unmindful of the fact that I was fast becoming an echo.”Why on earth should she go into the kitchen when there are swarms of servants to do everything she wants done?”

Gardner actually looked frightened now.

“Vera,” he said, “either you are going nuts, or I am. What has put such notions into your head?”

I didn’t pay any attention to the question because of a sudden, devastating thought had chilled my blood.

“Gardner,” I gasped, “is this the house you’re going to remodel for a wealthy client?”

It may have been his shirt, which was open at the throat, or the overalls; but when Gardner glanced at me he looked exactly like an embarrassed little boy.

“There’s no such animal,” he confessed. “I was ashamed to mislead you, darling; but I felt I’d explode if we ate another dinner at a hotel, and I thought you despised picnics. The spring had got into my blood, and I was haunted by this nice old place we saw three weeks ago. You see, other years I’ve helped Mother plant her garden; and – well, Vera, I simply had to break away or die of the suppressed desire to dig. Can you forgive me?”

I decided not to just at that moment, but I couldn’t keep it up because Gardner saw daylight that very moment and began to laugh. In fact, for the next five minutes we were in danger of succumbing to hysterics.

“Vera,” he said a while later when the last of my picnic lunch had disappeared, “I’ve been making some inquiries about this place. It’s not too far out for commuting, and can be bought for a song. If you wouldn’t be lonely –”

“Lonely!” I echoed once again, indignant that he should suspect me of such nonsense. “Lonely, with a house, and a garden, and – and maybe a dog and some chickens? Why, Gardner Hale, what do you think I am?”

“My girl,” said Gardner,” though I confess there’ve been times when I almost doubted it!” He put his hands on my shoulders and held me off while his eyes descended from my well-washed face to the shabby sport shoes, all scraped and rough.

“My girl!,” he repeated, as if that settled everything; and kissed me on the lips I was born with, not the Cupid’s bow that Polly considered essential to my success!