INVITATIONS FOR THE PARTY
Merivale was one of those quiet New England towns where, compared with
larger places, the people seemed more asleep than awake, there was so
little to interest or excite them outside the routine of daily life.
There were no very poor people, for work of some sort was plenty, and
there were no very rich people, except Judge White, whose walk, as he
put down his heavy gold-headed cane, indicated money and the
self-importance he felt on account of it. There were four
churches—Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist and Roman Catholic—two
banks, a weekly paper, a high school, a book club, a struggling literary
society, three dry goods stores, six groceries, and ten saloons, which
the W. C. T. U.’s were vainly trying to suppress. Once in two weeks the
Presbyterians and Methodists had a sewing society, which few attended,
as it closed at five and every one went home to supper. Once a month the
Episcopalians had a meeting of the Guild, with supper and a large
attendance, especially at supper time, when the young people came in,
glad of any break in their rather monotonous lives. For a time Mrs.
White was president of the Guild, but when at an annual meeting Mrs.
Grey was made vice-president she resigned, giving as a reason that it
made her nervous to read the prayers with which the meetings were
opened. Mrs. Grey was elected to fill her place, and made a most popular
president. Under her jurisdiction, with Louie as coadjutor,
entertainments of various kinds were instituted, and the little town put
on quite an air of hilarity compared with what it had worn.
The Grey house was the centre of many gatherings where hospitality was
dispensed with a liberal hand, and all who chose to come were welcome.
But there were few parties or receptions, and when it was rumored that
Mrs. White was intending to give one, the town awoke to great activity
of speculation as to who would be invited and who slighted. Somehow the
news got abroad that only those who called upon the guests were to be
honored, and at once the tide set in toward the White house, where there
were more calls made and more cards left than had been left and made in
a year. Mrs. White was very reserved in manner and had no intimate
friends. She had her days when she was at home to those who chose to
call. Sometimes three or four came, and sometimes none, and she was
equally pleased either way, as she preferred the quiet of her own room
to society, if she were expected to exert herself. On the two occasions
when as president she had felt obliged to entertain the Guild, and
Herbert, who was socially inclined, had invited everybody, she had been
greatly bored and scandalized by the crowd which came, glad of a chance
to see the inside of the grand house and say they had been there. She
did not suppose there were so many common people in the Episcopal
Church, she said. She thought they belonged somewhere else, and after
she resigned her office as president of the Guild she withdrew from it
and thus freed herself from the obligation to entertain it again. And
still she liked the bustle and excitement of watering places and
fashionable life—if she could be in it and not of it—could see it go on,
and not feel obliged to talk to anyone unless she chose to do so.
People called her proud, and Herbert called her indolent, and she was
both. Now, however, with the advent of the Lansings she roused up and
opened all her treasures. They dined in the state dining-room. The best
silver and glass and linen were brought out. The carriage and horses
stood at the door at all hours. She went to Worcester and interviewed
the best caterer and the best florist there, and then with Herbert sat
down to address the invitations for the party which was to astonish the
people in Merivale, and so far eclipse a little party which Mrs. Grey
had given the previous winter that people who attended it would never
know they had been there. To this gathering Mrs. White had not been
bidden, as Mrs. Grey had confined her invitations to those to whom she
was indebted, or who had been polite to her. Mrs. White would have
scorned to acknowledge that she cared for being left out. “Why should I
be invited?” she had said to Herbert, who was expressing his surprise
and saying he knew there was a mistake, “Why should I be, when I
scarcely know Mrs. Grey?”
“It is your fault and loss, too,” Herbert replied, while his father, who
was present, chimed in, “Invited by the Greys, who used to live in
White’s Row with Nancy Sharp! I’d laugh! They have come up like
mushrooms, the Lord only knows how, but I can guess. I consider it a
compliment not to be invited to their blow-out. Music from Springfield,
with a caterer and flowers by the bushel! Must have cost him a pretty
sum, decorator and all!”
“They did not have a decorator,” Herbert had said. “Louie did it
herself. She has more taste than half the decorators in the country, and
they say the party was elegant every way, and Mr. and Mrs. Grey were
ideal host and hostess. I wish I had been there, but young folks like me
were not in it.”
“Glad you wasn’t. I believe you are Grey mad, and everybody else, but I
tell you I won’t have it! No, sir, I won’t have it!” The judge growled
as he left the house.
This was in the winter, and not long after the Grey party, which had
been much talked of as _recherché_ in every respect. Notwithstanding
what the judge and Mrs. White had said, their slight had secretly
rankled and increased their prejudice against the Greys. And now that
the White party was in progress, there was a chance not only to
retaliate, but to outdo all the Greys had done.
“If we are to have a blow-out we’ll do it brown and beat the Greys. The
idea! That one-horse banker riding over my head!” the judge said to his
wife when discussing the matter with her. “If the Greys had their truck
from Springfield, do you go to Boston or Worcester, and get the best
there is to be had. Don’t stop at prices. Did the Grey’s have a brass
band? No, only a string for dancing? Then we will have a brass—two if
you like. Beat the Greys anyhow! That’s all I ask. Judge White is good
for any amount. We haven’t had a party for years, and the Lansings don’t
come every day.”
This was the judge’s attitude, with which his wife sympathized to a
certain extent. She really had more good sense than her husband, but she
was largely dominated by his opinion, and when she at last sat down with
Herbert to direct the cards of invitation, two facts were prominent to
her mind. Her party was to surpass that of the Greys, and the Greys were
not to be invited. “We will take the townspeople first,” she said, and
began to read the names upon her list, hesitating over some and crossing
some out as not quite worthy to meet the Lansings.
Herbert had jotted down several names, which he submitted to his mother,
and among them were those of two Sheldon girls in the country, who, he
said, were good dancers and ought to be invited. Mrs. White shook her
head. She did not know the Sheldons. She had already exceeded the limit
set at first to her invitations, and had drawn the line on all country
people except the Gibsons, whose son had called on Fred, with whom he
had been in college. The Sheldons were thrown into the wastepaper
basket, with others who had preceded them, and Mr. and Mrs. and Miss
Grey were next suggested.
“Certainly not,” his mother said, more decidedly than she had to the
Sheldons. “I scarcely know Mrs. Grey, and have never been in her house,
nor has she been here, and your father has a strong dislike to Mr.
Grey.”
“Better say ‘unreasonable prejudice.’ It’s nothing but that,” Herbert
answered hotly. “Father has treated them like dogs, and people know it.
Why, Mr. Grey is by far the finest-looking man in town, and Mrs. Grey is
a lady, and Louie is a——”
Here he stopped, for Fred Lansing just then entered the room, and
hearing the last words and seeing Herbert’s flushed face, said
laughingly:
“Louie is a what? and who is Louie? Oh, I know; she is that pretty,
bright-eyed girl I have seen two or three times riding her wheel like
the wind. Is she to be one of the guests? I hope so.”
“Yes, she is,” Herbert answered emphatically, “and she has a wonderful
voice. Maybe we can get a song from her. I am writing the names now—Mr.
and Mrs. Grey. He is in the bank, you know, next to ours. You can help
put the cards in the envelopes, if you want to do something.”
Herbert was in a hurry to get the Greys settled before any further demur
from his mother. _They_ should be invited anyway, and he wrote the
addresses and passed the envelopes to his cousin, who put in the cards
of invitation and dropped them into the basket with others ready to be
delivered.
Mrs. White did not care for a controversy before Fred, and said nothing,
thinking she would remove the envelopes before the basket went out. But
she forgot it; and when, next morning, David went his rounds with the
invitations, two were left at Mr. Grey’s.
“Oh, mamma! Look! Invitations for us all, and you have not called,
either,” Louie cried, taking out one of the cards and reading that Mr.
and Mrs. White would be at home Thursday evening, June —, from eight to
twelve.
She was greatly excited, for she had thought a good deal of the party,
of which so much was being said in town, but her mother’s decided “We
shall decline” dampened her spirits at once. There was a storm of tears,
under which Mrs. Grey might have given way but for her husband, who,
when consulted, was more decided than his wife, and the regrets of the
three were sent to the White house on the day preceding the party,
bringing Herbert at once to the Greys with inquiries as to the reason
why Louie, at least, could not come, even if her parents stayed away.
“I’ve told Fred so much about you,” he said, “and he wants to see you,
and I was going to have mother get you to sing; Miss Percy is so fond of
singing, and such a good judge; and now everything is going wrong. The
head caterer cannot come, and will send some one in his place, and most
likely the crew will be drunk and serve ice cream first, and leave the
sandwiches in the pantry, as they did at Alice Rogers’; and now you are
not to be there, and I wish we were not to have the blow-out, and I
don’t care if it rains cats and dogs to-morrow. I hope it will.”
Having delivered this speech, which did not at all move either Mr. or
Mrs. Grey, Herbert flung himself out of the house, with a feeling that
he was a much-abused young man, and that without Louie the party would
be a failure.