Miss Billy's Decision
Copyright© 2024 by Eleanor H. Porter
Chapter 6: At the Sign of the Pink
After a week of beautiful autumn weather, Thursday dawned raw and cold. By noon an east wind had made the temperature still more uncomfortable.
At two o’clock Aunt Hannah tapped at Billy’s chamber door. She showed a troubled face to the girl who answered her knock.
“Billy, would you mind very much if I asked you to go alone to the Carletons’ and to meet Mary Jane?” she inquired anxiously.
“Why, no—that is, of course I should mind, dear, because I always like to have you go to places with me. But it isn’t necessary. You aren’t sick; are you?”
“N-no, not exactly; but I have been sneezing all the morning, and taking camphor and sugar to break it up—if it is a cold. But it is so raw and Novemberish out, that—”
“Why, of course you sha’n’t go, you poor dear! Mercy! don’t get one of those dreadful colds on to you before the wedding! Have you felt a draft? Where’s another shawl?” Billy turned and cast searching eyes about the room—Billy always kept shawls everywhere for Aunt Hannah’s shoulders and feet. Bertram had been known to say, indeed, that a room, according to Aunt Hannah, was not fully furnished unless it contained from one to four shawls, assorted as to size and warmth. Shawls, certainly, did seem to be a necessity with Aunt Hannah, as she usually wore from one to three at the same time—which again caused Bertram to declare that he always counted Aunt Hannah’s shawls when he wished to know what the thermometer was.
“No, I’m not cold, and I haven’t felt a draft,” said Aunt Hannah now. “I put on my thickest gray shawl this morning with the little pink one for down-stairs, and the blue one for breakfast; so you see I’ve been very careful. But I have sneezed six times, so I think ‘twould be safer not to go out in this east wind. You were going to stop for Mrs. Granger, anyway, weren’t you? So you’ll have her with you for the tea.”
“Yes, dear, don’t worry. I’ll take your cards and explain to Mrs. Carleton and her daughters.”
“And, of course, as far as Mary Jane is concerned, I don’t know her any more than you do; so I couldn’t be any help there,” sighed Aunt Hannah.
“Not a bit,” smiled Billy, cheerily. “Don’t give it another thought, my dear. I sha’n’t have a bit of trouble. All I’ll have to do is to look for a girl alone with a pink. Of course I’ll have mine on, too, and she’ll be watching for me. So just run along and take your nap, dear, and be all rested and ready to welcome her when she comes,” finished Billy, stooping to give the soft, faintly pink cheek a warm kiss.
“Well, thank you, my dear; perhaps I will,” sighed Aunt Hannah, drawing the gray shawl about her as she turned away contentedly.
Mrs. Carleton’s tea that afternoon was, for Billy, not an occasion of unalloyed joy. It was the first time she had appeared at a gathering of any size since the announcement of her engagement; and, as she dolefully told Bertram afterwards, she had very much the feeling of the picture hung on the wall.
“And they did put up their lorgnettes and say, ‘Is that the one?’” she declared; “and I know some of them finished with ‘Did you ever?’ too,” she sighed.
But Billy did not stay long in Mrs. Carleton’s softly-lighted, flower-perfumed rooms. At ten minutes past four she was saying good-by to a group of friends who were vainly urging her to remain longer.
“I can’t—I really can’t,” she declared. “I’m due at the South Station at half past four to meet a Miss Arkwright, a young cousin of Aunt Hannah’s, whom I’ve never seen before. We’re to meet at the sign of the pink,” she explained smilingly, just touching the single flower she wore.
Her hostess gave a sudden laugh.
“Let me see, my dear; if I remember rightly, you’ve had experience before, meeting at this sign of the pink. At least, I have a very vivid recollection of Mr. William Henshaw’s going once to meet a boy with a pink, who turned out to be a girl. Now, to even things up, your girl should turn out to be a boy!”
Billy smiled and reddened.
“Perhaps—but I don’t think to-day will strike the balance,” she retorted, backing toward the door. “This young lady’s name is ‘Mary Jane’; and I’ll leave it to you to find anything very masculine in that!”
It was a short drive from Mrs. Carleton’s Commonwealth Avenue home to the South Station, and Peggy made as quick work of it as the narrow, congested cross streets would allow. In ample time Billy found herself in the great waiting-room, with John saying respectfully in her ear:
“The man says the train comes in on Track Fourteen, Miss, an’ it’s on time.”
At twenty-nine minutes past four Billy left her seat and walked down the train-shed platform to Track Number Fourteen. She had pinned the pink now to the outside of her long coat, and it made an attractive dash of white against the dark-blue velvet. Billy was looking particularly lovely to-day. Framing her face was the big dark-blue velvet picture hat with its becoming white plumes.
During the brief minutes’ wait before the clanging locomotive puffed into view far down the long track, Billy’s thoughts involuntarily went back to that other watcher beside a train gate not quite five years before.
“Dear Uncle William!” she murmured tenderly. Then suddenly she laughed—so nearly aloud that a man behind her gave her a covert glance from curious eyes. “My! but what a jolt I must have been to Uncle William!” Billy was thinking.
The next minute she drew nearer the gate and regarded with absorbed attention the long line of passengers already sweeping up the narrow aisle between the cars.
Hurrying men came first, with long strides, and eyes that looked straight ahead. These Billy let pass with a mere glance. The next group showed a sprinkling of women—women whose trig hats and linen collars spelled promptness as well as certainty of aim and accomplishment. To these, also, Billy paid scant attention. Couples came next—the men anxious-eyed, and usually walking two steps ahead of their companions; the women plainly flustered and hurried, and invariably buttoning gloves or gathering up trailing ends of scarfs or boas.
The crowd was thickening fast, now, and Billy’s eyes were alert. Children were appearing, and young women walking alone. One of these wore a bunch of violets. Billy gave her a second glance. Then she saw a pink—but it was on the coat lapel of a tall young fellow with a brown beard; so with a slight frown she looked beyond down the line.
Old men came now, and old women; fleshy women, and women with small children and babies. Couples came, too—dawdling couples, plainly newly married: the men were not two steps ahead, and the women’s gloves were buttoned and their furs in place.
Gradually the line thinned, and soon there were left only an old man with a cane, and a young woman with three children. Yet nowhere had Billy seen a girl wearing a white carnation, and walking alone.
With a deeper frown on her face Billy turned and looked about her. She thought that somewhere in the crowd she had missed Mary Jane, and that she would find her now, standing near. But there was no one standing near except the good-looking young fellow with the little pointed brown beard, who, as Billy noticed a second time, was wearing a white carnation.
As she glanced toward him, their eyes met. Then, to Billy’s unbounded amazement, the man advanced with uplifted hat.
“I beg your pardon, but is not this—Miss Neilson?”
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