CHAPTER XIV
RUTH'S coming-out party cost over two thousand dollars, they say. Her dress alone was made by a dressmaker in Boston who won't "touch a thing" under a hundred and fifty; and Edith's—shimmering blue, draped with chiffon covered with green spangles, and here and there a crimson one (it looked just like the shining sides of a little wet brook trout)—simply spelled money.
I tell you the whole party lived up to the gorgeousness of Edith's gown too. There were orchids frozen in ice, for a punch bowl, in the dining-room; Killarney roses by the dozens in the reception-room; chrysanthemums in big round red bunches in the living-room; and the stairway was wound with smilax and asparagras fern, with real birch trees—silvery bark and all—at intervals of four or five feet. There were extra electric lights, extra maids, extra everything; and on the morning of Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of October, there arrived a whole squad of caterers from Boston with cases large as trunks filled with pattie shells, a thousand tiny brown pyramids of potato croquettes, tanksful of mushrooms, crab meat, and sweet-breads, cratesful of Malaga grapes and actual strawberries imported from somewhere which they dipped in white fondant and then set away to cool in little frilled paper holders, all over the butler's pantry.
It took Edith and Ruth two solid weeks of discussion and consultation to complete the invitation list. You see Edith was careful to give the party early in the fall before the summer colony had gone back home to its winter quarters. After the reception itself there was to be a small dance, and the elect were invited to remain. It was a source of satisfaction to Edith that only a dozen native Hilton men were invited to the dance, and but eight girls. Of course such partiality and ruthless slight and scorn of the people of her own native city caused a good deal of feeling in Hilton, but I observed that most every one who was invited to the reception came, in spite of the fact that they had been omitted from the dance to follow. Every living woman in Hilton was anxious, I suppose, to prove by her presence that she had the distinction of a portion of the engraved invitation at least.
I remember one name was under discussion for a week—a Mrs. Hugh Fullerton who was simply crazy "to get into things," Edith said—an officious, showy little bride from the West, she explained, who had married that young Yale graduate, Hugh Fullerton. Hugh Fullerton had been invited everywhere before he was married. He had been in Hilton only three years, but he had taken well. New young men usually do take well in Hilton. It's the women and the girls who have to climb and scramble. Mr. Fullerton was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was learning the boiler business in the Hilton Boiler Works. He was a fine, tall, athletic, bronzed sort of fellow; Edith used to invite him to The Homestead very often; he'd ridden every one of her hunters; he was supposed to be one of her favourites. Then he married, and Edith's invitations came to an abrupt end. I had never seen Mrs. Fullerton, but I felt sorry for her.
"She has been married only since June," I said to Edith; "why not invite the poor thing to the dance? What harm would it do? She may be a little homesick way on here in the East, and it might cheer her up a lot to have a little distinction if she's so awfully anxious for it."
"Bobbie, dear child, I'm not running an institution for homesick girls," replied Edith. "I know what I'm about. I rather liked the girl at first, I confess. She's got a lot of style, but she simply isn't being taken up—that's all. The Ogdens live in St. Louis in the winter and this Mrs. Fullerton lived there before she was married. The Ogdens know everybody in St. Louis of any importance, but they never even heard of Mrs. Fullerton. I'm not going to try to float a girl in society, whom I know nothing about. You may be sure of that."
"I should think your position would be secure enough after a while, for you to show a little independence," I murmured.
"Independence! Why, child, I'm inviting her to the reception, as it is. Anyhow what can you know about it? I'll settle the invitations, dearie." That was an example of the manner with which my ideas were usually treated.
There was a house-party planned at The Homestead in addition to the tea and dance. Edith always does a thing up good and brown. She wrote to about a dozen out-of-town people and invited them to become the guests of the house for over the twenty-fifth. These consisted of boarding-school friends of Ruth's, several of Edith's; and Oliver and Malcolm, who of course came home for the event, provided a generous supply of men from their crowd at college.
The three automobiles were kept busy meeting trains all the day before the tea, and the expressmen were tramping up and down the stairs with dozens of various trunks of all styles and sizes. The guest-rooms in The Homestead looked very festive, all decked out in real lace and silver, with Edith's best embroidered trousseau-spreads stretched out gorgeously upon the beds. It really grew quite exciting as the time for the tea drew near—even I felt a little of the pervading delight. Of course I hated meeting so many new people, but everybody's attention was centered upon Ruth, and I was perfectly free to withdraw to my room at any time I desired. I, thank goodness, was only Ruth's sister.
The tea was on a Wednesday, October twenty-fifth, from five until seven o'clock. Edith had bought a lovely dress for me—pink and soft and shining—and about three o'clock she sent the professional hair dresser, who had been spending the day at the house, to puff and marcel Bobbie, she said.
I hardly knew myself when I gazed into my mirror after I was all dressed. My hair was done up high like a queen's, and there were two little sparkling pink wings in it. My dress was cut into a V in front, and my neck looked so long and slender with my hair drawn away from its usual place in the back, and piled up in a soft puffy pyramid on top, that I seemed almost stately. I just wished Dr. Maynard could see San Francisco then!
As I walked out into the hall, my train made a lovely sound on the soft oriental rugs. I stood at the top of the stairs and gazed about me. Everything was in readiness—maids in black and white stationed at the bedroom doors, the musicians below already beginning to tune their instruments, the dark draperies drawn, a soft illumination of electricity everywhere, and the faint delicious odour of coffee mixed with the perfume of roses. I was overwhelmed with the spirit of prosperity that filled every corner and cranny of my father's house. I wondered what Father would think of it all—big, calm, quiet Father whose tastes were so plain, habits so simple, and whose words of advice to us his children always so eloquent with the wickedness of extravagance. I put him out of my mind just as quickly as I could. I didn't want to think of him just now. I wanted to have a good time for once in my life; I wanted everybody to see that I wasn't shy and quiet and plain; I wanted to be clever and admired; and I would be too! I caught a glimpse of myself, whole length, in the long hall-mirror. My cheeks were flushed and rosy, my eyes were dark and bright. I really believed I was pretty! I could have shouted, I felt so happy. I ran down the side stairway, that leads to the hall off the porte-cochère, through the chrysanthemum-laden living-room and hall, into the rose-perfumed reception-room, where I found Edith and Ruth ready for the first arrival. I felt suddenly generous-hearted toward all the prosperity and luxury that made such a palace of our old house and such a new creature of me. I wanted to tell Edith how lovely I thought it all was.
I had more reason than ever to feel grateful to Edith about an hour later. It was at the very height of the afternoon rush, about quarter past five. I happened to be standing just back of Edith, waiting for a chance to offer her some lemonade which one of the ladies assisting had been thoughtful enough to send to her by me. There was a long line of women that stretched way out into the hall, just like a line in front of a ticket window at the theatre, each waiting her turn for a chance to shake hands with Edith, though most of them she sees every time she goes out anyhow. Edith was very gracious and cordial this afternoon. I've heard very often that she makes a lovely hostess. I watched her closely, trying to see just where the charm lay.
"Ah, good afternoon! Mrs. Fullerton, I believe?" suddenly broke in on my reflections, and I glanced up quickly, curious to see the poor little neglected bride whom I championed. There really was nothing very poor nor very neglected about her appearance. I couldn't see her face beneath her plumed picture-hat, but her costume was very costly and elegant—a lot of Irish lace over something dark.
"Yes, Mrs. Hugh Fullerton," she replied effusively. "Hugh has told me so much about his good times here at The Homestead, Mrs. Vars, and how kind and cordial you've been to him, and I do want to thank you. Haven't you a gorgeous afternoon? I'm so glad to meet you, after all Hugh has said. Why, I know some of your horses by name even—Regal, for instance—the one that threw Hugh—do you remember?"
Edith's manner cooled, hostess though she was.
"Regal has thrown so many!" she remarked. "Ruth, Mrs. Fullerton," she finished.
"Oh," went on Mrs. Fullerton to Ruth, not at all abashed, "I've met Miss Vars already. A bride remembers everybody new she meets, you know, and then of course I couldn't help but remember you." There was something hauntingly familiar about Mrs. Fullerton's manner and voice. I put the lemonade on a table near by and drew nearer. "It was at Mrs. Jaynes' bridge-party last week," she went on; "don't you remember? We played at the same table, Miss Vars."
"Did we?" inquired Ruth in her sweet, icy, little way; "I don't remember."
"Of course," flushed Mrs. Fullerton. "Débutantes meet so many new people. I know just how it is—I was there once myself. I don't wonder one bit. I remember I couldn't keep even the men straight, to say nothing of the women."
"O Lucy," suddenly exclaimed Edith, catching sight of me, "this is Mrs. Fullerton. My other sister, Miss Vars, Mrs. Fullerton. She'll take you to the dining-room and serve you some tea or an ice."
I raised my eyes to Mrs. Fullerton's. No, I hadn't been mistaken. I should have recognised that voice in China. Mrs. Fullerton's mouth opened in amazement as she gazed at me.
"Lucy Vars," she finally ejaculated. "Lucy Vars! Why, Lucy, don't you remember Sarah Platt?"
"Yes, I remember," I nodded.
"How lovely! How perfectly lovely!" exploded Sarah. "Why, Mrs. Vars," she sparkled, "Lucy and I are old pals! Isn't it too nice for anything? We were at Miss Brown's-on-the-Hudson the same year, and I guess if you've ever been to boarding-school yourself, you know what that means. Why, Lucy, you old trump, how are you anyway? I'm simply pleased to pieces!" And the once much-envied Sarah Platt of years ago, the successful, the glorious Sarah Platt, enveloped me at last in a huge schoolgirl embrace!
"Hypocrite!" I thought.
"I'd lost track of Lucy completely," she went on to Edith and Ruth, linking her arm familiarly through mine. "I'd forgotten your home was in Hilton, though I certainly knew it was in Massachusetts somewhere. Wasn't it stupid? Here I've been living for three months in the same place with you, Lucy Vars, and never knew it! Here you were all the time a sister to Mrs. Alexander Vars, whom Hugh wrote me so much about that I almost grew jealous," she laughed. "Isn't this world just the smallest place you ever heard of, Mrs. Vars? You must come right over and see me, Lucy, and make up for lost time, and I hope you'll both come with her," smiled Sarah upon my sisters; "I'd simply love to have you."
We moved away toward the dining-room.
"Oh, Lucy," went on Sarah, "I am so glad to see you again! It's just like discovering somebody from home. I haven't any friend here my own age at all. You've grown so pretty! You're looking splendid; and aren't your sister and sister-in-law just stunning!"
I drew my arm away from Sarah's. I remembered what she had thought about my family once.
"Don't leave me," she exclaimed, "please, or I'll perish. Stay while I have my ice. I don't know one soul in that dining-room."
Life works out its patterns very cunningly, I think. Once I had hidden in shame behind a telegraph-pole from this majestic creature; once she had looked upon me as mean and insignificant, unworthy of even her pity; now she actually plead for my favour, toadied to my family, palavered me with flatteries. I drew in deep breaths of satisfaction.
"Dear, dear life, how kind and just you are after all!" I said half an hour later, gazing into my mirror, in my own closed room. "My day is dawning now—mine, mine, at last! And I'm so happy! I'm going to have a wonderful time at the dance to-night. I feel it. Oh, it's good after all to have money and prosperity; it's good to wear soft, pink shimmering dresses that are becoming and make people gaze and whisper; it's good to hold such a position in a community that even Sarah Platts bow and scrape and try to please; it's more than good—it's exhilarating!"
I went out into the hall and started to go down the main stairway. It was deserted now. The hour was seven-thirty, just before the men were due to arrive for the supper and the evening celebrations to follow.
Half-way down this stairway, on the landing, there is a large portrait of my father. Amid all the preparations going on in the house I had not known that Edith had had the electricians adjust a row of shielded electric lights at the top of the heavy frame of Father's picture. The portrait had always hung on the landing where the light is very dim. We had had it for years. It was painted when we were prosperous, but I had never examined it very closely. It was an awfully black sort of picture, and before Ruth's tea I could not have definitely said whether Father was standing or sitting in it. I didn't know that a row of lights could make such a difference. As I turned on the landing that night and came suddenly upon the painting I stopped stock-still. Why, it wasn't a picture! I didn't see the frame, nor the canvas, nor the paint. It was Father, dear Father himself, sitting at his roll-top desk down in the sitting-room. I could see every little wrinkle in his face, the crows-feet at the corners of his eyes, the fine, tired-looking lines along his forehead. He was sitting in his big leather armchair, and I remembered exactly how the leather had worn brown and velvety like that, along the edges. As usual he wore across his breast his heavy gold watch-chain, with the black onyx fob—the one he used to let me play with in church, when I was very little—and in one hand, which was resting easily along the arm of the chair, Father held his glasses just as he used to hold them when he took them off to glance up at me before I dashed off to dancing-school on Saturday nights. "Can't you keep that hair a little smoother?" he'd say to me, and "Isn't there a good deal of trimming on that dress? Your mother always wore plain things with a little white at her neck. Keep your tastes simple, my girl, and your clothes neat and nicely sewed." They were plain, homely words. Any man could say them, but as I remembered them that night, they seemed terribly sweet—almost sacred—and I backed up against the wall, and stared at Father there before me, with tears in my eyes. He would not have liked the sparkling wings I was wearing in my hair. The dress that Edith had given me—all shining satin, wasn't like my mother's with a little white at the neck. The silent, sad expression in my father's eyes smote me. He was gazing straight at me, down into my heart. I almost saw his lips move. The words of the verse that he used to repeat so often at our morning prayers after breakfast, I seemed to hear again: "Children, how hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter into the Kingdom of God." Father was always quoting things from the Bible about vanity and riches. His heroes were always big, simple, honest men like Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin. As I stood and stared at Father's picture the musicians began to play some soft, dreamy melody, and just then Alec from above caught sight of me leaning up against the wall.
"Hello," he called cheerfully; "how do you like the new lights on the picture?" And he came tripping down all dressed up in his evening clothes to join me. I don't believe Alec had seen the portrait lighted before either, for he stopped short beside me when he came in full view of it. He was speechless for a moment. Really those lights made Father look as if he could answer if we spoke to him. He seemed to be actually sitting there amid all the luxury and splendour he had so despised. Alec came over beside me. He took my hand in his and for a long sweet half-minute, my old partner and I stood there together on the landing and gazed up into Father's noble eyes.
"It's miraculous," breathed Alec, softly, at last.
I couldn't answer. It was miraculous. I wished I was in my ugly old blue cashmere and could crawl up into Father's lap.
I didn't know anybody was coming up the stairs till suddenly Alec dropped my hand and left me.
"Hello—hello there," he called out jovially. "Come right up, Mr. Campbell. Just gotten here, haven't you? Everything's gone in tip-top shape so far. We're looking pretty fine around here, aren't we? Bobbie and I were passing judgment on Edith's new lights. Here, let me take that coat. Edith discovered that this old portrait of Father was by an artist who has a reputation now, so she had it properly lighted. It is marvellous what a really excellent likeness it is. Come and tell us your opinion."
I slunk away to my room quietly.
All that evening amid the babble of voices and din of violins, pianos and cornets, while girls in gorgeous raiment sat beneath Father's picture between dances with their partners on the top stair of the landing, and just below men gathered around the punch-bowl; while Edith and Ruth shone in jewels, and old Dave Campbell blatantly exhibited the latest improvements in the house to all his friends, Father looked down upon it all from his lofty position silently, disapprovingly, a look of censure in his eyes that I couldn't seem to escape. My little hour of triumph was snuffed out by Father's gaze like a candle in a tempest; my sudden self-satisfaction, my burst of eager joy in prosperity and position, born to feel the throb of life but for an hour.
I didn't enjoy the dance. I couldn't. I tried once or twice to "enter in," but it was masquerade. There had been champagne served at the supper. Girls as well as men were full of the spirit of mad merry-making. Everybody was having a glorious time—everybody but me. I hated the hilarious laughter. I don't mean to imply that any one became intoxicated, I don't think they did exactly, but just the same the whole affair seemed to me like a debauch going on in my father's house beneath his very eyes. I stole up to the landing about eleven o'clock when the music was still shrieking, Ruth's cheeks burning with excitement, Oliver laughing so loudly that I could hear him above the music, and switched off the lights above Father's picture. He shouldn't look on at such festivities—mute, unable to speak his mind, tied there in his chair, helpless and forgotten—he shouldn't if I could help it!
Late that same night—or it must have been the next morning—anyway after every one was quiet, and the house was finally dark I stole out of my room and crept quietly down on the landing. The house was dead still. I heard the big clock with the chimes strike a half-hour, and a second after all the other clocks reply. I was in my nightgown wrapped around with an eiderdown bath-robe. I found my way stealthily to the little button behind the portrait. I pushed it. There was a little click and suddenly Father was before me! I went back and sat down on the lowest stair, close up to the railing, and looked up into his comforting eyes. No one had known that I had spent the last six dances shut up in my room. No one had missed me. I had had a horrid time, but no one cared.
There were the remains of the orgy of the night before scattered all about Father's feet—a discarded bunch of violets, a torn piece of chiffon, a half a macaroon, a girl's handkerchief. As I sat there and wondered how Ruth and the twins and Alec could all go peacefully to sleep, unmindful of their strict and rigid bringing-up, forgetful of Father left here in the midst of the confusion of the things he preached against, I heard from somewhere, way off, a queer long laugh. I listened intently, and in a moment I could catch the rumble of voices from behind closed doors. I wondered who could be awake at such an hour, when a door opened downstairs, and as plain and distinct as day, a man's voice exclaimed, "Come on, boys, we'll have to carry old Ol up. Lend a hand, one of you chaps who can walk straight, and don't make any noise. Wake up, Oliver, old pal. We're going to bed." I heard a horrid guttural sort of rejoinder from Oliver, and I shuddered. Some of the men must have been sitting up in the dining-room and drinking! I knew, oh, I knew now, that Oliver must be intoxicated! I was in my nightgown. There was no time to turn out the lights over Father's picture, to shield Father from the awful sight of his son, drunk—horridly, helplessly drunk, being carried upstairs to bed. I glanced up at Father shining there in his frame. He was looking straight down the long broad stairway. In another minute Oliver and Father would meet face to face. I turned and fled back to my room.