And then Mamma really came. She put down her candle, and the moths began to fly around it crazily. Her shadow and Victor’s streamed up the side of the wall, tremulous and huge. She knelt by the bed and put her arms around his body that stiffened under her touch.
“Oh, you naughty boy, you ought to be sound asleep!” But she was glad he wasn’t, really. Bright tears went slipping down over the brightness of her smile.
“Victor, dearest little boy, I have some news for you, something that’s going to make Mamma and all of us so happy. Look, Mamma’s crying, but it’s only because she’s so happy—isn’t that silly? You’re going to have a new Papa—won’t that be lovely, darling? A dear new Papa to love us all and take care of us—Mr. Lacey—”
Victor was as rigid as iron. His face, his large ears, his thin little neck turned scarlet. His whole body was scarlet under his nightshirt. And suddenly like a cork flying out of a bottle a loud “No!” burst from him, and another and another. She couldn’t soothe him, she couldn’t stop him. Scarlet, furious, he went on crying “No! No! No! No!” as if his cries were torn out of him by terror and despair.
“Hush, darling, hush! He wants to take us all across the ocean in a great big ship, as big as this house—won’t that be fun? Perhaps we’ll see a whale! Think of that! And Mamma will love Victor a thousand thousand times as much as ever—”
She tightened her arms about him, she tried to draw his head down on her breast, rocking back and forth with broken murmurs of “sh-sh, sh-sh.” But nothing would stop those tearing cries.
And at last she promised. He was safe. He lay in the big chair by the window, exhausted, giving now and then a long shuddering sob—but safe, safe! Mamma had promised.
She washed his hot face with cool water and cologne, she took off his hot, rumpled nightie and put on a fresh one. Sitting there while she made his bed with fresh cool sheets he heard a cock crow far away, and saw a faint streak of light along the river.
In bed again—so cool, so still—no sound but a June-bug bumbling against the ceiling. Funny old June-bug! He tried to lift a hand to make sure that Mamma was still there, but his arms, his legs, all his body had turned into yards and yards of silk the color of the river in the moonlight, flowing in such soft folds and billows in his cool fresh bed. He felt something wet fall on his face, and just managed a faint “Mamma!” before the cool silver depths closed over him.
Next morning Mamma was all washed white, like a flower that has been rained on and rained on and rained on. Only her poor eyes and nose were pink, as if her pretty pink cheeks had run in the wash and streaked and stained all the wrong places. All morning she sat at Papa’s desk between the dining-room windows, writing and tearing up, writing and tearing up, and at last Albert was sent off with a note, and with Brownie, but not the gloxinias, which hadn’t done very well. Mamma put Mr. Lacey’s letter and one velvety dark gloxinia bell into her Bible, and for a long time she cried whenever she looked at them. She never saw Mr. Lacey again.
XII
Miss Hessie Farley was going to be Airy Fairy Lilian in half a minute, and was in a panic because she couldn’t find her blue scarf and parasol anywhere. Mrs. Farley, who was helping behind the scenes, asked, “Why didn’t you hold on to them?” and tears of fury sprang to her daughter’s eyes. While the ladies seethed, Mr. Bates and Prentice Page stood ready to pull back the hitchy curtains, and had a good look at the audience through the sides. Flap, flap, flap went the fans, like flapping wings all over the hall, but the birds were too heavy to rise.
It was Maggie, just through being Mariana in the Moated Grange in a draped crimson portière with her back hair flowing, who saw a pale blue tail hanging down from Aunt Priscilla, sitting on a box. The parasol was under her, too. Airy Fairy Lilian took up her position and put on her smile, the curtains hitched back, and there was another of the Tennyson Tableaux.
They were to raise money to buy a new melodeon for the Sunday school, and everyone was helping. Aunt Priscilla was old Mother Hubbard—not that that was Tennyson, but she always was Mother Hubbard, whatever the tableaux were. She had her costume—a chintz skirt with poppies on it, a red sateen lace-up-the-front bodice, and Willie’s mother’s straw poke-bonnet trimmed with tea-colored ribbons. It did for Martha Washington, too, at fancy-dress parties, or, if she left off the poke bonnet and floured her hair, for Marie Antoinette. But she liked to be Mother Hubbard because she had taught her terrier Tiny to sit up and beg, and he could be Mother Hubbard’s Dog. Every time anything was planned someone said, “Now this time we really can’t have Mrs. Willie Campion as Mother Hubbard, and somebody just must tell her so, that’s all there is about it!” But what were they to do when she said timidly and eagerly, “Do you want Tiny and me to be Mother Hubbard and her Dog? It wouldn’t be a bit of trouble, if you do, because I have my costume.”
Mrs. Webster sang “Sweet and Low”
