The Green Bay Tree (Bromfield, Frederick A. Stokes Company, printing 11)/Chapter 15
ON the occasion of Lily's first dinner at home, the mulatto woman brought out the heaviest of the silver candelabra and despatched Hennery into the Town for a dozen tall candles and a great bunch of pink roses which filled the silver épergne when the mother and the two daughters came down to dinner; Julia Shane, as usual, wore black with a lace shawl thrown over her gray hair, a custom which she had come to adopt in the evenings and one which gave the Town one more point of evidence in the growing chain of her eccentricities. Irene, still clad in the gray dress with the high collar and looking somehow like a governess or a nurse employed in the house, took her place at the side of the table. As for Lily, her appearance so fascinated the mulatto woman and the black girl who aided her that the dinner was badly served and brought a sharp remonstrance from Mrs. Shane. No longer had Lily any claims to girlhood. Indisputably she was become a woman. A fine figure of a woman, she might have been called, had she been less languid and indolent. Her slimness had given way to a delicate voluptuousness, a certain opulence like the ripeness of a beautiful fruit. Where there had been slimness before there now were curves. She moved slowly and with the same curious dignity of her mother, and she wore no rouge, for her lips were full and red and her cheeks flushed with delicate color. Her beauty was the beauty of a peasant girl from which all coarseness had been eliminated, leaving only a radiant glow of health. She was, after all, the granddaughter of a Scotch farmer; there was nothing thin-blooded about her, nothing of the anemia of Irene. To-night she wore a tea-gown from Venice, the color of water in a limestone pool, liquid, cool, pale green. Her reddish hair, in defiance of the prevailing fashions, she wore bound tightly about her head and fastened by a pin set with brilliants. About her neck on a thin silver cord hung suspended a single pear-shaped emerald which rested between her breasts, so that sometimes it hung outside the gown and sometimes lay concealed against the delicate white skin.
Irene throughout the dinner spoke infrequently and kept her eyes cast down as though the beauty of her sister in some way fascinated and repelled her. When it was finished, she stood up and addressed her mother.
"I must go now. It is my night to teach at Welcome House."
Lily regarded her with a puzzled expression until her mother, turning to explain, said, "She teaches English to a class of foreigners in Halsted street." And then to Irene, "You might have given it up on the first night Lily was home!"
A look of stubbornness came into the pale face of the younger sister. "I can't. They are depending on me. I shall see Lily every day for weeks. This is a duty. To stay would be to yield to pleasure."
"But you're not going alone into Halsted street?" protested Lily. "At night! You must be crazy!"
"I'm perfectly safe. . . . They know me and what I do," the sister answered proudly. "Besides there is one of the men who always sees me home."
She came round to Lily's chair and gave her a kiss, the merest brushing of cool lips against the older sister's warm cheek. "Good-night," she said, "in case you have gone to bed before I return."
When Irene had gone, an instant change took place in the demeanor of the two women. It was as though some invisible barrier, separating the souls of mother and daughter, had been let down suddenly. Lily leaned back and stretched her long limbs. The mulatto woman brought cigarettes and the mother and daughter settled themselves to talking. They were at last alone and free to say what they would.
"How long has Irene been behaving in this fashion?" asked Lily.
"It is more than three years now. I dan't interfere because it gives her so much pleasure. It saved her, you know, from entering the church. Anything is better than that."
Then all at once as though they had suddenly entered another world, they began to talk French, shutting out the mulatto woman from their conversation.
"Mais elle est déja religieuse," said Lily, "tout simplement. You might as well let her enter the church. She already behaves like a nun . . . in that ridiculous gray dress. She looks ghastly. You should forbid it. A woman has no right to make herself look hideous. There's something sinful in it."
The mother smiled wearily. "Forbid it? You don't know Irene. I'm thankful to keep her out of the church. She is becoming fanatic." There was a pause and Mrs. Shane added, "She never goes out now . . . not since a year and more."
"She is like a spinster of forty. . . . It is shameful for a girl of twenty-five to let herself go in that fashion. No man would look at her."
"Irene will never marry. . . . It is no use speaking to her. I have seen the type before, Lily . . . the religieuse. It takes the place of love. It is just as ecstatic."
"The mulatto woman, who had been clearing away the dishes, came and stood by her mistress' chair to await, after her custom, the orders for the following day. There will only be three of us . . . as usual. That is all, Sarah!"
The woman turned to go but Lily called after her. "Mama," she said, "can't we open the rest of the house while I'm here? It's horrible, shut up in this fashion. I hate sitting in the library when there is all the drawing-room."
Mrs. Shane did not argue. "Get some one to help you open the drawing-room to-morrow, Sarah. We will use it while Miss Lily is here."
The mulatto woman went out and Lily lighted another cigarette. "You will want it open for the Christmas party," she said. "You can't entertain all the family in the library."
"I had thought of giving up the Christmas party this year," replied the Mother.
"No . . . not this year," cried Lily. "It is such fun, and I haven't seen Cousin Hattie and Uncle Jacob and Ellen for years.
Again the mother yielded. "You want gaiety, I see."
"Well, I'm not pious like Irene, and this house is gloomy enough." At the sight of her mother rising from her chair, she said . . . "Let's not go to the library. Let's sit here. I hate it in there."
So there they remained while the tall candles burned lower and lower. Suddenly after a brief pause in the talk, the mother turned to Lily and said, "Et toi."
Lily shrugged her shoulders. "Moi? Moi? Je suis contente."
"Et Madame Gigon, et le petit Jean."
"They are well . . . both of them. I have brought a picture which I've been waiting ito show you."
"He is married, you know."
"When?
"Only three weeks ago. He came here after your letter to offer to do anything he could. He wants the boy to go to school in America."
Here Lily smiled triumphantly. "But Jean is mine. I shall accept nothing from him. He is afraid to recognize Jean because it would ruin him. I shall send the boy where I like." She leaned forward, glowing with a sudden enthusiasm. "You don't know how handsome he is and how clever." She pushed back her chair. "Wait, I'll get his picture."
The mother interrupted her. "Bring me the enameled box from my dressing table. There is something in it that will interest you."