She got out her demi-trained brown skirt and her best waist of tan nun’s veiling, just back from the cleaner’s. Those bishop sleeves were always getting in the butter. They’d done it very nicely, but it did smell funny. Oh, dear! Perhaps if she sprinkled on a few drops of “Cashmere Bouquet”—
Which would look nicer with it, her carved sandalwood beads or the repoussé silver bonbonnière that swung to her knees on its long chain? The bonbonnière was heart-shaped—that would be appropriate to Saint Valentine’s Day, and there were some cachous left in it that she could pass around.
She pinned a crescent of “rat” on the top of her head, and turned her hair back over it in a high, hard pompadour. Then she looked into the hall again.
“Tock, tock, tock,” said the clock on the stairs. Why, she wouldn’t have time to wash her hands and face for supper, not to mention washing out a few handkerchiefs and a pair of stockings or so. She tiptoed to the bathroom door and listened—not a sound! Well, she’d just say something tactful through the keyhole. She rattled the knob a little, and called humourously: “Anybody drownded?”
Victor had stayed in town for a rehearsal at the Century Club, and was having a pleasant time with a pair of pretty Chicago ears, in Wilmington on a visit. The Maples was becoming an old plantation as it entered their sympathetic pinkness, Jake and Ida were turning into any number of old family servants, speaking in anecdotes and full of devotion for “Mr. Victor.” Things grew more Southern every minute, and Mrs. Jenkins’ voice shattered through an atmosphere of magnolia trees and mocking birds.
“Where’s the Bachelor? Bachelor! Mr. Campion!”
“Present!”
“Well! I’ve been calling till I—Margaret! Margaret Johnson! You stay right here! We’re going to run through the ‘Bachelor’s Revery.’ Now, listen everybody, please, we want to go through everything the way we’re going to tomorrow night—no fooling or giggling. What, Mr. Burnett? Yes, certainly, the firelight glow and everything—”
The firelight glowed—electric lights covered with red crêpe paper. Victor walked to the middle of the stage, watched coldly by Mrs. Jenkins. It was plain from the look in her eye that she wasn’t going to like it, no matter what anyone did.
“ ‘Tomorrow is my wedding day,
Tonight, in the firelight’s glow,
I’ll sit and dream of bygone days,
And the girls I used to know.’ ”
“You’ll have to talk louder than that.”
“All right, I will tomorrow.”
“Well, I hope you do,” said Mrs. Jenkins dubiously. “School Girl! Please try to be right here for your cues, or we won’t get through tonight.”
Victor sank into a Morris chair before “the firelight’s glow,” lit his pipe, gave a great stretch, and sank into the revery, while Margaret Johnson in sunbonnet, pinafore, and curls, was hit now and then by Mr. Burnett’s wavering spotlight.
“Not yet, Débutante, not yet—you must wait until School Girl’s through—” and she prompted the Bachelor:
“ ‘And seem to see again
The little—’ ”
“ ‘The little old red schoolhouse
At the bottom of the lane.’ ”
“Now, Débutante—”
“Of course, I’ll have a bouquet to hold tomorrow night,” the Débutante explained, giving her satin girdle a good tug down in front, and patting the mass of curls that burst out from under her coiffure wreath of cotton English daisies with cotton and rubber tubing stems. Some of them didn’t feel any too secure.
“Indian Maiden!”
They only had an Indian Maiden because Gertrude Carr had the costume. That was silly for a Bachelor’s Revery, Victor thought. But the Athletic Girl had lots of style, with her red flannel shirtwaist and white stock, her Tam o’ Shanter and flung-back plaid golf cape.
“I thought you were going to carry a golf stick, Ada.”
“I am, Mrs. Jenkins, but I can’t borrow it until tomorrow.”
The Summer Girl—how pretty she looked in her leghorn hat, wavy as a fluted cake-pan, trimmed with roses and set on a high bandeau. Her ingenuousness was quite a contrast to the Widow, draped in black, with her hands clasped behind her to show her fine bust and straight front.
“Bride! Bride! Where’s the Bride? Where’s Marguerite?”
“She isn’t here yet, Mrs. Jenkins, she and Scudder Tait were coming by auto, I guess that’s why they’re so late.”
Mrs. Jenkins folded her lips and sighed.
“Well, the ones of you that are going to be in the Gibson Tableaux needn’t wait any longer, but the Sunflower Belles and Beaux might go through their cakewalk again while we’re waiting for her. Please give us ‘Hello, Mah Baby,’ Mr. Sargent. Mr. Sargent! I said ‘Hello, Mah Baby.’ ”
But at last they were through, and Victor was going home on the Darby car, that connected Wilmington with Philadelphia now, was peering through the windows into the night—here was his getting-off place.
The fields were white with snow, and snow fell cold and fresh on his face. He walked buoyantly up the lane, thinking of the way the Summer Girl had looked at him—the Widow, too, for that matter. His mouth went up a little at the corners.
Maggie heard him singing “Hello, Mah Baby” as he climbed the porch steps, and flung the door open.
“Oh, Victor, I thought you’d never come—”
“I forgot to tell you I was going to stay in for a rehearsal—what’s the matter? Why are you crying?”
“May—May’s drowned herself—in the bathtub—”
“Maggie—Mrs. Detweiler sent all these lilies—I wish I’d never made fun of her—”
“Bring them in, Victor. Doesn’t she look sweet and young? I keep thinking of the time she was the ‘Lady of Shalott’—do you remember? She had lilies then, too.”
She looked from Victor’s red swollen eyes to her sister’s lovely tranquil face, and for a second it seemed as if an answer to all life’s questions had come to her, and gone before she could make it hers. May looked so young again, so happy. The room where she lay was in twilight, but out of doors sunlight on snow made a white flame too bright for mortal eyes.
