Maggie was busy trying to break up one of the currant-eyed mice, and May lay flat on her back and wouldn’t play properly. But Lily and Victor and Chloe’s little black granddaughter Lossie, with whom they might play in the garden but not in the house, talked together politely.
“How do you do, Mrs. Jackson?”
“Howdo, Mis’ Jackson.”
“You mustn’t call me Mrs. Jackson, too, Lossie. You’re Mrs. Jackson.”
“What-all mus’ Ah call you?”
“Well, let’s see. I guess you better call me Mrs. Featherby. Go on, Lossie. Say how do you do, Mrs. Featherby. You say it too, Victor honey.”
“How do do, Mrs. Featherby.”
“Howdo, Mis’ Featherby, Ah done thought Ah’d come to dinnah.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you did. Is this your dear little boy?”
“No-o ma’am, dis yeah’s mah husban’. He’s a right well-off genelmun. How is you-alls chillun?”
“Well, they all have scarlet fever today. This is my little girl.”
“No, I’m not,” said May. “I’m not playing.” She lay on her back pretending the quivering green light falling through the beech leaves was green seawater, and that she was lying down, down at the bottom of the sea. She was always pretending that she was under the water.
She loved Mamma’s room better than any place else in the world. She loved the pale grey wall paper with its pattern of whiffs of white lace caught up by moss-rosebuds; the broad bed; the ruffled pincushion like a great white water-lily; the amber glass slipper; the brown china trunk for matches; and the great rainbow splashes that Mamma’s crystal-stoppered perfume bottles spattered about the room. And Mamma’s clothes had an irresistible attraction for her—velvet jackets with small gold hanging buttons, some in the form of bells, some of pears or flowers; boots topped with bands of fur or pheasant feathers; lavender gloves; and the fashionable new satin ribbons studded with small gold flies. But trying on a velvet sortie de bal, or tipping a frilled sunshade over her shoulder in front of Mamma’s bureau with all its jutting shelves, she would be drawn into the deep, dim mirror, faintly green, and see herself, a little mermaid, through sea water. On the bureau stood a small house made of shells. That was the Sea-King’s palace in Hans Andersen.
“In the deepest spot of all stands the sea-king’s palace; its walls are of coral, and its tall pointed windows of the clearest amber, while the roof is made of mussel shells, that open and shut according to the tide. And beautiful they look; for in each shell lies a pearl, anyone of which would be worthy to be placed in a queen’s crown.”
How May loved the story! She thought of the marble statue of the handsome youth, standing on bright blue sands in the dancing violet shadows cast by a red weeping willow through whose branches the fishes swam. She was the little mermaid swimming deep, deep in the sea—swimming around that beautiful statue, swimming up through the water while the silver bubbles streamed behind her—up to see and to love the young prince who would never love her.
The fairytale house that interested greedy little Lily more was the gingerbread house in “Hansel and Gretel.” Good little cakes, and almonds on the roof!
Maggie considered herself too old for fairy tales. Her favorite book was “The White Chief; a Story of New Mexico,” by Mayne Reid, and she sternly made the others act it out when they were longing to tie grass sashes around the waists of hollyhock dolls, or beat up mud chocolate puddings—or anything rather than be scalped with the trowel from the potting-shed.
As for Victor, he couldn’t read much of anything yet, although he could point out V for Victor and C for Campion in the alphabet book.
VII
Gently the Campions slipped from being rich to being “well-to-do,” from being “well-to-do” to being “comfortable,” and from being “comfortable” to “having to be just a little careful.” Mamma didn’t understand it, but remained placid and bought sealskin sacques and muffs for herself and her daughters, for certainly they had to be kept warm somehow; and, not until after the fur coats were bought, did it occur to her that she might have knitted them all hug-me-tights to wear under their cloaks.
There was a continual trickle of new trifles for herself, a coral colored peplum, fringed with jet, a fanchon bonnet like a velvet dish of currants, a few new braids and puffs, or a straw embroidered white tulle veil. And, for the children, there were Roman sashes, worked petticoats, red and white flannel sailor-suits, embroidered with anchors. These things didn’t count, and as for the larger purchases, the walking costumes and carriage costumes (both used for the same purpose by Mamma), the wine-colored curtains for the dining-room, and Prince, the new pony for Victor, she bought those only because something (not rappings or tipping tables) seemed to tell her that her husband would have wished her to have them.
Besides, she saved—ever so much. All the horses but Stella and old Charlie were sold. The wine bills were nothing compared to what they had been when Papa was alive; as for ball-gowns, she hadn’t been to a ball since she became a widow; and, although she had been unable to resist one confection of arsenic green satin and gold wheat, it billowed alone of its kind in her wardrobe.
Cousin Lizzie Blow thought it was outrageously extravagant of Mamma to have a pair of earrings painted with Trusty’s head. Of course, everyone was having earrings with
