I
For a day or two Eileen was abstracted and moody, a flaccid resignation
taking the place of the high spiritual enthusiasm that ushered in
her surrender. But it was not in the girl’s nature to remain long
depressed. She could not, as Lavinia did, nurture a grouch to its
final fruition. Her return to normal was accompanied by a sequence of
quarrels with her elder sister, and she shunned her father with studied
aversion. Hal resumed his old habit of asking her to meet him on the
campus or around the corner on Sherman Avenue. “To escape Sylvia’s
sticky patronage,” she explained to Mrs. Ascott.
Towards the end of the week she went with Theodora to the shady west
porch of Vine Cottage, to assist with the drawing of innumerable
threads and the hemming of a fresh supply of napkins for the two linen
closets. Her lap was overflowing with damask when the postman’s whistle
shrilled through the sultry morning air. Theo bounded to her feet,
her eyes wide with excitement. The coming of the postman was always
an adventure, vicarious but none the less interesting. Some day he
might bring.... No, she was not expecting letters for herself. But
Lary had sent away a poem and an essay. And then, there ought to be a
long letter for daddy. As yet there had been nothing but a stingy post
card, with the hackneyed old Niagara Falls on one side and on the other
that offensive old cliché: “Will write soon.” And mamma had sent such
attractive cards to all the others, not omitting Nanny and Mrs. Dutton.
After a few minutes she came slowly back, all the joy gone out of her
face. There was a long envelope addressed to Mr. Larimore Trench. She
inverted the hateful thing in Judith’s lap. Letters of acceptance did
not come in long envelopes. There was another one, square and perfumed,
bearing the name, Mrs. Raoul Ascott. Who was this Raoul Ascott, that he
should intrude here?
“The dead have had their shining day;
Why should they try
To listen to the words we say
And breathe their blight upon our May
While the winds sigh?”
She had read the stanza in the back of one of Sylvia’s books ...
written while Sylvia was temporarily engrossed with a young professor
whose spouse had died. But, after all, it wasn’t quite fair to feel
that way about people who couldn’t help being remembered. And Mr.
Ascott _had_ vacated the place that belonged rightfully to Lary. The
third letter was from mamma. It bore, in Lavinia’s cramped writing, the
name of Mrs. Oliver Penrose. The little girl raged impotently as she
called her sister.