Maggie moved her head away from the palm sticking into the back of her neck. Mercy, how the woman buzzed!
“ ‘Shoo fly! Don’t bother me!’ ”
“I was looking at the presents with Edward Post and his wife, and he was saying that the worst of getting married—”
The glass of punch leapt on Maggie’s plate.
“Edward—?”
“Edward Post. Didn’t you know him when he lived with the Allens, years ago, before he went to South America? You must have, they lived so near you. Why, yes, seems to me I’ve heard he was quite a beau of yours, haven’t I? Didn’t you see him and his wife this evening?”
Maggie set down her chattering glass and plate on the corner of the mantelpiece. She was shivering all over. Mrs. Craig’s face floated towards her, burst into splinters of brightness and blackness. She heard her own voice say, high and unfamiliar, an affected society voice:
“No, I didn’t see him. In fact, I hadn’t heard he was married.”
And she laughed nervously, politely, leaning against the wall to keep from falling.
“Oh, yes, indeed, very much so, he has been for two years. In fact he married a distant connection of Mr. Craig’s—too bad you didn’t meet her, but they left very early. Of course, they don’t live here, but he comes on sometimes on business, I understand—not that Mr. Craig and myself see much of them; just between you and me I think success has turned his head a little. She had a very pretty dress on, a pink corded silk, not exactly pink, more peach—look! Will you look at Mr. Craig! He’s lost me completely—look at that hopeless expression. See, he doesn’t see us at all! Frank! Oh, Frank, honey—I’ll just have to chase after him—”
Maggie went upstairs to the bedroom, empty except for heaps of cloaks, drifts of nubias, foothills of storm-boots, and huddled in a dark corner. Her geraniums fell from her belt and lay on the floor beside her, as red as a pool of blood. She felt as if she were bleeding to death. She had never really said goodbye in her heart to Edward. But now she knew that the footsteps she had listened to for so long would never reach her.
“ ‘Goodnight, ladies! I’m going to leave you now!’ ”
“I don’t feel a bit sleepy. Didn’t Victor look wonderful? I don’t think it’s prejudice, I think he really was far and away the best looking usher, don’t you? Just imagine the way we’ll be feeling when he’s the bridegroom!”
“Is he coming home or spending the night in town? Well, I’ll leave out some sponge-cake and milk anyway. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
“Lily, did you see to kitty?”
“Someone stood all over my slippers—look, one bow’s lost!”
“Goodnight, I guess I am sleepy after all. Oh, I brought home some wedding-cake to dream on—want some, May? Maggie! Want some wedding-cake to dream on?”
XXIII
While we still feel that we are just entering the sea we look back, and how far we have come! How far away are the seashells and sandcastles of childhood. We can see them, but we can’t go back to them. No matter how tired or frightened we are, we have to swim on out to sea.
Forty-one years old! Maggie couldn’t believe it. She didn’t feel forty-one a bit! Of course, she was often tired now—she, who had never been tired. But she got up so early and went so hard all day. And then sometimes she didn’t sleep very well, but that was when she let herself think of Edward.
Forty-one! Mamma had only been forty-two when she died—impossible to be almost as old as Mamma, almost disrespectful. And she couldn’t feel grownup inside her—or did older people have these young feelings—were they shy, not quite sure of themselves, glowing with love at a kindness, delighted with something pretty to wear or something good to eat, and sometimes wanting more than anything to stick out their tongues and make faces—and did they just hide them under dark clothes and quiet ways?
The Campions were so poor that they were all trying to earn a little extra money. Twice a week Maggie drove in to The Woman’s Exchange with her cakes and May’s lampshades and little crêpe paper baskets to hold candies or ice-cream. Such pretty baskets, pale violet with purple paper violets tied with a bow of baby ribbon to the handle, pale green with buttercups, and pink with something charming, though none of them quite knew what. Or sometimes the baskets were like big cabbage roses. When there was a special order Maggie would help. Lily longed to help too, but her clumsy fingers tore the thin tissue paper and dropped glue on May’s exquisite petals, and her violets weren’t violets, but only crumpled balls, good for nothing but for the kitten to pat across the room and pounce on. So she read aloud to them while they worked, Ships That Pass in the Night and Sweet Bells Out of Tune, nearly yawning her head off, and driving them wild, by pausing every now and then to read ahead to herself a little, just to see what was going to happen.
She was trying to earn something, too, by giving music lessons. She wasn’t very accurate, but her four pupils were all beginners, and she could play over their pieces, “Joy and Frolic Galop,” “The Little Penitent,” “The Brooklet,” or “Dolly’s Funeral,” with a great deal of ripple and expression. She had Sissie and Mary Holly, Stewy Grant’s little boy, and Miss Taylor, the postmaster’s daughter; and most of the lesson times were taken up in cozy chats, telling her troubles, offering freshly baked cookies and having one or two herself, or taking her pupils into the garden to
