So Victor went “down state” with his brother Willie and Sam Blow to shoot reedbirds, and railbirds, and ducks in the marshes, rowed across the river to fish in the New Jersey creeks, skated on the river in winter nearly up to Philadelphia, and galloped over the fields foxhunting.
“You ought to join in Victor’s pleasures more, my dear, unless you’re anxious to lose him,” Lizzie Blow advised Margaret. “It’s a poor plan to let a man find out how well he can amuse himself without you.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears. She did join in Victor’s pleasures! With her own hands, she made him sandwiches of ham, home-cured in the old grey smokehouse that huddled under its mantle of heaven-blue wistaria; she ate, with cries of delight, the fat little reedbirds he shot; she patted his horses, timidly offering them apples while she tried to hide her terror at their bared teeth and jerking heads; and she saw that drinks were always ready when he and Willie and Sam came trooping in, steaming punch when they were cold and muddy, frosty mint juleps when they were hot and dusty. And it was to “The Maples” they always returned, not to “Meadowbrook,” the Blows’ house, nor to “Riverview,” where Willie and poor Priscilla lived in expensive muddle. Remembering this helped Margaret to bear Lizzie’s trying remarks with fortitude. And she would rather have died than tear around the country as Lizzie did on Sam’s wildest horses, with her cheeks like fire, making such a figure of herself.
Victor had brought Margaret home to his father’s house in Delaware; and two years later the elder Mr. Campion died, leaving the place to his son. She loved it, inside and out; the trees so tall they seemed to hold the sky, the gold-green lawn, the carriage sweep, and the fountain in front of the house, with its great sheaf of white and green iron calla lilies and leaves, each lily sending up a jet of water. She loved the big grey house with its cupola and porches; the round beds of asters that were blooming when Victor brought her home, the pears that were dropping, heavy and golden from the golden sun. She loved the view of the river, blue, or slate-colored, or café au lait, with its sailing ships. She loved the negro servants, their soft voices and ready laughter and melancholy songs. She loved her deep carpets, the snowdrift of her bed, the delicious food that old Chloe cooked. And oh, she did love her pretty clothes, after piecing and contriving and making over her old dresses for so long! Her gowns of apple-green glacé, black velvet, mauve and primrose silk, her black lace shawl with its swirling ferns and deeply petalled edge, her white lace shawl as delicate as frost-work; her little parasols the shape and color of hyacinth bells; and the pearl and primrose tinted gloves; and small white mists of cobweb pocket-handkerchiefs, fragrant from lavender fagots.
And she loved Victor, too. She loved him very much, indeed.
As she had told him, she did so want to please him! But there was only one thing he didn’t have that he wanted, and that was a son.
So kneeling in church in her best shawl and bonnet, and by the broad bed in her long-sleeved high-necked nightgown and lace-frilled nightcap, she sent up prayers detailed as marketing lists:
“Dear God, please bless Victor and Baby” (or “Maggie and Baby,” or “Maggie and May and Baby,” as time went on) “and let her not have so much trouble with her teething; and bless Mamma and Papa, and bless Henry, too, but don’t let him ask Victor for any more money; and make old Chloe not so cross; and make me good and make my sore throat well; and keep us in safety and happiness and give us a little boy. Amen.”
III
Nobody could keep away from the parlor, because Papa was there, home again. Old Chloe, in a clean yellow print sprigged with scarlet and a fresh turban, brought eggnog; Albert carried in logs for the fire; and old Toot, though he knew perfectly well he had no business to, looked in to say that he was trying to teach the little yellow cow’s two-day old calf to suck. As for the little girls, they couldn’t get near enough to Papa. But it was to Mamma that all his being was pouring out, pouring out.
They gave him his birthday presents right away—they simply couldn’t wait any longer. Mamma had embroidered him a pair of slippers—tigers! They quite frightened Lily, the tigers stared at her so, and showed such red tongues. It had been a great piece of work, calling not only for black Berlin wool, and white, and light and dark scarlet, but seven different shades of brown. And then such a question as to whether the background should be bright sky-blue or pale green. All the little girls had given their opinions.
Then she had had her own hair and theirs made into a watch-fob for him; and even that wasn’t all, for old Toot had driven them to Wilmington one day to the photographer’s, and they had had their Cartes de Visite taken. The little girls could have spent hours gazing at their pictures, and Mamma herself took a good many looks.
Maggie had made him a
