Poor Aunt Priscilla had died, and people from Marcus Hook had bought Riverview, nice people, no doubt, but not Church people, and she looked—well, plain, to say the least. But they had lots of money. May and Lily, who called, reported emperors’ heads on bronze placques, hung against grape-arbor paper, washbowls of Tiffany glass edged with wrought-iron lace, suspended by heavy chains, and holding electric lights, Turkish tabourets inlaid with mother-of-pearl, cushions (so fat and firm that they left little room in the chairs) covered with tapestry squares of gaming cavaliers and drinking monks, and a deerskin with the antlers left on hanging over the landing railing. And Mrs. Detweiler had played her phonograph to them—that was wonderful. What an age they were living in—really, it seemed as if there was nothing left to be invented. Think of the moving pictures that Victor had told them about—The Tailor’s Dream, with scissors cutting out clothes by themselves, and trousers running away, Expert Bag Punching, Alaska Dog Teams at Dawson City, Winter Sports in Norway, Levi and Cohen, the Irish Comedians (that had bothered Lily until Victor explained it was a joke). How the sisters wished they could see them! But, of course, ladies couldn’t; it wouldn’t have been the thing at all to go into one of those dark mysterious places, although Maggie said she was just going to put on a thick veil and go, some day. And now here they sat and listened to Sousa’s band playing “Stars and Stripes Forever,” to someone singing a comic song about a Tattooed Man—
“ ‘It is perfectly true you can beat a tattoo,
But you can’t beat the tattooed man—’ ”
and to an Uncle Josh Whitcomb monologue that they couldn’t understand very well. Still, it seemed as if Uncle Josh must really and truly have his mouth at the other end of that big tin morning-glory. Mrs. Detweiler laughed so hard that little bright tears stood on her bulges of cheek, and her diamond eardrops quivered.
“Papa and the boys certainly do delight in our talking machine! I wish you ladies could hear our Le Moyne give an imitation of it—he holds his nose like this—see? Like this. Laugh! We nearly die!”
And when they started to go she stopped them with a mysterious wink, flung herself back in her rocking chair, and yelled over her shoulder:
“Clarence! Cla-a-a-runts! (He’s our colored waiter-man.) Bring some cup—there’s some in the icebox, and say! Clarence! Some pretzels—you ladies like pretzels?”
In came a tall thin cut-glass tankard full of pieces of banana and pineapple, with claret lemonade filling the cracks, and a mountain of pretzels. She was kindness itself, but somehow they didn’t go again, although Victor went once for ping-pong and a chafing dish supper and once to a box-party they gave in Philadelphia, where he saw chinks of “Everyman” between the towering hats worn by the ladies. Mrs. Detweiler nearly cracked her jaw yawning, but she knew it was “artistic,” and genteely patted the back of her gloved wrist at the end of each act. Lily found something in a newspaper: “ ‘Everyman’ will in a measure counteract the cheapness of those fatuous frivolities, the ultra modern musical comedies.” She cut it out and pinned it to Victor’s pincushion. She almost felt, hazily, dimly, that Victor was responsible for the plays he honored by attending, the books he read, the tunes he sang in the bathroom.
Victor sang “Hiawatha” and “Any Rags?”, went to germans, collected steins (three—then he gave it up) read “Storiettes” in Munsey’s Magazine, with heroes named Jack Meadows and heroines named Madge Van this or that, read poems about thinking you were in love with Cora, and Dora, and Dolly, and Molly, and Bessie, and Tessie, until you met the one girl (and tried writing a few himself), made fudge in chafing-dishes and played ping-pong with young ladies with pompadours, bursts of chiffon at the backs of their necks, and straight fronts, and felt that Maude Adams would really understand him if only they could meet. His mirror was stuck full of little pencilled dance-cards, and often and often he had two invitations for the same evening. Lily put his dead carnation boutonieres in water, tried unsuccessfully to lend him her mother-of-pearl opera glasses in their blue plush case, and cut out every list that held, or should have held, his name—sometimes to her indignation he was hidden under the veil of “and others.” “Everybody asks Victor everywhere!” she exulted, and May replied, “Of course! He’s a bachelor. Wait till he gets married and see if he stays so popular.”
Lily ate fudge, read “Richard Carvel” and “My Lady Peggy Comes To Town,” wishing that she had lived in the time of brocade and powdered hair, saw “If I Were King” and fell mildly in love with Mr. Sothern in an ermine toque, fell mildly in love with Gibson men, Christy men, and C. Allen Gilbert men, made bead chains and got her threads in terrible knots, and took up pyrography, burning crooked fleurs-de-lis and Art Nouveau water-lilies on wooden picture frames and glove boxes.
May had the straightest front and the biggest pompadour in Brandywine Hundred, made the three of them shirtwaists that were masses of handwork and lace insertion to wear with white piqué skirts, worked at a Battenberg lace bertha for Lily, holding the square of pink muslin close to her smarting eyes—for she needed glasses dreadfully, but she wouldn’t wear them, she wouldn’t give in—and spent hours locked in her room, lying on her bed with her arms around her pillow, whispering—
And Maggie worked on, getting up while the east was grey to start the fire and call Victor, worked through the day worrying over May’s strangeness, the way the hens
