“I’ll go,” Aunt Priscilla offered, thinking it was probably the lady selling soap and vanilla and white rose perfume who had been at her house a little earlier. But, when she opened the door, there was Sam Blow’s bride, dressed to kill in a cape of nut-brown velvet lined with gold-colored satin, with three flaring collars trimmed with gold lace, and holding her nut-brown velvet skirt high enough to show bronze shoes with sharp, tiny points and Louis Quinze heels. “As high as stilts,” Aunt Priscilla thought, trying to squat a little to hide her own old cloth sided boots. A hat with an openwork jet brim and a crown of brown velvet wreathed with yellow velvet roses and black ostrich tips, perched high on her much too yellow hair; and turquoise lizards and enamelled spiders and beetles with garnet and diamond eyes crawled all over her.
“Daisy Blow’s in the parlor!” Aunt Priscilla panted to Maggie.
“Oh, Aunt Priscilla! Oh, I can’t come! Oh, bother—oh, dear! What did she have to come for? Go on in, like an angel, and I’ll come just as soon as ever I can—”
And she rushed around, taking the dye off the stove—mercy! Of course, she had to splash some out! Then up the back stairs to scrub with soap and water—she was purple from top to toe—give a yank to her hair, and kick into her beaded slippers—that would have to do. She looked like fury, but she couldn’t help it.
She didn’t like Daisy Blow. She looked fast, and she certainly was painted black around the eyes, for it had smudged a little. And what a lot of “Héliotrope Blanc,” perfume, the woman was drenched in it. And such airs over that huge bunch of violets, telling them that the fin de siècle girl wouldn’t consider herself dressed for out-of-doors without one. Maggie felt a sudden warm gush of affection for shabby, shy old Aunt Priscilla, with her corsets sticking out in a ridge and powdered sugar all down her front.
Conversation creaked along, heavy and slow.
“We thought you and Cousin Sam were still in New York.”
“We came down three days ago. Sammy wanted to rusticate a bit and see his beloved horses. I tell him he loves them much better than he loves poor little me. Just between you and I, my adored Sammy is one of those social Hottentots, who thinks the conventions of Society’s charmed circle are absurd, and pines for the wilds of the country, while I am désolée away from town.”
“You’ll find it’s right nice here now that it’s spring,” said Aunt Priscilla, and added in a little rush of confidence, “My peach tree is in bloom!”
“Is that so?”
Everyone paused.
“Meadowbrook’s such a nice house,” Maggie offered.
“Oh, my dear! It’s so old-fashioned! Of course, Sammy gives me carte blanche, as they say, and I’m going to try to brighten it up a little, but I fear me ’tis a hopeless task. Perhaps, it will be more liveable when we have a telephone put in, and electric lights.”
“Boastie!” thought Maggie, going into the dining-room, fiercely hospitable, to get out homemade wine and the Christmas fruitcake; and Aunt Priscilla’s eyes were nearly popping out of her head.
They sat making conversation together and taking little nibbles and sips of cake and wine; Maggie and Aunt Priscilla stiff and shy, the new Mrs. Blow grand and uneasy, until the door banged, and there was Victor. And then the caller came to life indeed. “My!” thought Aunt Priscilla.
“Whew!” cried Maggie, dashing around, flinging up windows as soon as Daisy Blow drove away. “Whew, whew, whew! I never smelled so much perfume in my life! Whew!”
“Methinks, my lady’s auriferous tresses are too good to be true,” said Victor.
“Hmm! Methinks, you seemed to admire them, all the same.”
“There aren’t any flies on Cousin Daisy,” Victor admitted, smiling complacently into the mantelpiece mirror.
“Well, there’s everything else—turquoise bugs and things, I never saw anything like it. And she certainly ain’t a lady—why, she don’t even speak good grammar. Here’s her handkerchief, absolutely reeking, now what am I going to do with that?”
“I have to go by there tonight, I’ll take it over,” said Victor, and he put it into his pocket and went upstairs, two steps at a time, singing at the top of his lungs:
“ ‘Daisy, Daisy,
Give me your answer true,
I’m half crazy,
All for the love of you—’ ”
Maggie and Aunt Priscilla looked at each other.
“My!” said Aunt Priscilla.
On Saturday afternoons Victor taught Daisy to ride a bicycle. He rolled her round and round the drive at “Meadowbrook,” while she, in a balloon-sleeved pink shirtwaist with a stiff white linen collar, and a small grey Fedora hat, leaned against him shrieking at the top of her lungs. And Daisy in a white silk tea-gown with lace frills and a Watteau pleat, with red silk stockings and slippers, taught Victor to make Welsh rarebits in the chafing dish.
“Now the beer goes in,” and she leaned against him, her perfumed hair brushing his cheek. Heavens, he was slow! But there was something sweet about him, too, and she was bored to death with her poor, dear, old Sam, snoring in his den fit to raise the roof.
Or Victor took snap photographs of Daisy with her French poodle.
“Now waltz with Missy, Pompon,” Daisy would cry, seizing his paws when the posing was over, and the little black legs would scrabble as Victor whistled “Je t’aime.” “Muzzer’s precious pet!” Daisy murmured, covering Pompon with kisses, and looking up coquettishly at Victor. “It’s love me, love my
