THE SQUARE BECOMES A TRIANGLE
Mrs. Wyndham, Jessamy, and Barbara, with Tom as escort, returned
heavy-heartedly from the Warren Street pier, where they had been seeing
off Phyllis at the beginning of her first venture into the world. The
big _Puritan_, with her colors flying and her band playing, steamed out
into the river looking bright and festive, but to those from whom she
was bearing one fourth of themselves she seemed a kind of monster.
Violet opened the door to them when they reached home, and Truce arched
his back into a furry croquet-wicket in his pleasure on seeing them
once more; but Jessamy's tears sprang to her eyes again, remembering
that the kitten's dear mistress was sailing away; if Phyllis had gone
to Darkest Africa, it could hardly have been more dismally tragic than
the short journey to Boston seemed to the two girls who loved her.
"We are a square no more," said Bab, drearily, as they seated
themselves at the dinner-table.
"Still we are four," suggested Mrs. Wyndham, with a kindly smile for
Tom, toward whom Barbara's manner was distinctly forbidding.
"Oh, I can't take Phyllis's place," said Tom, cheerily; "but I should
say you were still as square as ever, since she is bound to be here,
no matter where else she is. That sounds slightly occult," he added,
laughing. "What I mean is--"
"You mean her heart's in the Highlands wherever she roams," said
Barbara. "But that is worse for us all; it makes her homesick, and
we miss her just the same. No, we are no longer a square; we are a
triangle, and I feel as though we were not even a triangle standing on
one of its sides--or whatever you call them--but a triangle standing up
on one of its points, and very wobbly."
"We will hope it will not be long before we are squared again," said
her mother. "We must not take Phyllis's flight too seriously; we are
so unused to separations we cannot realize how trifling this little
trip would be to less spoiled people. We shall have a telegram in the
morning and such nice letters every day from our dear little girl that
perhaps we shall never be willing to let her come home again."
"I don't believe Horace Walpole and Madame Sévigné, melted down and
poured out on the tip of Phyl's pen, could bring us to that state of
mind," said Jessamy, giving Truce an extra fine bit of lamb for his
mistress's sake.
The telegram announcing Phyllis's safe arrival came before luncheon
the next morning, and the following day brought her first letter.
"Dearest Auntie, Girls, and Truchi-ki," it began: "Behold me of an
arrival--you see, I am inclined to French forms. I had the nicest
kind of a journey--so nice that I should be delighted to repeat it
to-night--with the steamer's bow headed the other way!"
"Dear old Phyl; telegraph her to do it!" cried Barbara.
"But I am here to stay, and not so homesick as you might think I would
be. Mrs. Dean is a dear, and Boston reserve may be as icy as the comic
newspapers say, but when it makes up its mind to thaw it really is as
warming as port wine, with much of the same rich, dignified quality.
Mrs. Dean treats me with what I should call respectful affection, and
that is the kind of treatment that makes a snip of a girl, away from
home for the first time, feel self-reliant; it puts her on her mettle
to be as womanly, contented, and generally pretty-behaved as she is
expected to be. Mrs. Dean evidently intends to watch over me, and make
me happy if she can, and the least I can do under such goodness is to
be happy. She is going to save my self-respect by letting me feel she
did not take me for charity, but that she really wanted me for service.
My duties are to read to her, attend to her correspondence, and bear
her company from her breakfast, at half-past eight, till luncheon,
at one. After luncheon she drives for an hour, when I accompany her,
after which drive she lies down, and I am free till the seven o'clock
dinner. In the evening I sit with her, reading or playing backgammon or
cribbage, until nine, except those evenings when her nephews and nieces
call, or, as she says with a significant twinkle, when she feels minded
to go to a concert or play, as she will sometimes, now that she has a
youthful companion to enjoy frivolity as much as she does.
"She is interested in my account of my little hopes, and says I must
continue writing while with her, and she will see to it that I have
time to do so for hours in the splendid great library. Oh, dear
folkses, do you suppose our library at Fortieth Street will be as
glorious as this beautiful Greek temple here? Of course, I maintain to
Mrs. Dean that it is to be surpassed by the New York library when it is
done, but in my heart of hearts I wonder if ours can equal the Boston
one.
"I have not seen much more of the city than the library; not that from
the inside. The coachman brought me through Copley Square this morning
when I arrived, and this afternoon I went down among the shops with
Mrs. Dean. The shops look rather serious after our beauties; indeed,
though Boston is handsomer than New York--that is, Commonwealth Avenue
and around it, where Mrs. Dean lives, is fine--it is not cheerful and
bright like our own queer, big jumble of a city, but looks as though
it wore gray, and wore it on principle. We went down in the subway,
and I felt dreadfully mortified not to have a hand-bag. Every woman,
young and old, except myself, carried a little cloth bag, most of them
shaped like school satchels held together by their leather handles. I
felt as though I were out without some necessary article of clothing,
not a hat or anything that might ever be superfluous, but something as
dreadful to want as the waist of my dress, for instance. I certainly
must get a bag, if I want to be respectable--I wonder if Boston
policemen arrest girls who go out without bags, if they are alone? Mrs.
Dean had one, so that may have saved me. Dearest, darlingest family, I
hope you miss me--not too much, but a little. And I hope Violet will
keep the kitchen and all my dear tins in apple-pie order; tell her I
said so. And don't let Trucie miss me, yet don't let him forget me. And
I am glad I came away, yet I would give anything to drop down among you
as I shall drop this letter into the box. Altogether, I am a bundle of
contradictions, you see; but I am doing as well as one could expect me
to, and am going to be busy and contented. Write me, one of you, every
day; for I love you more than you know, and it is a wee bit hard to be
a wandering, prodigal daughter. Especially to such a home body as your
spoiled, but loving Phyllis."
"She is homesick, but she doesn't mean to let herself find it out,"
said Jessamy.
"Dear little Phyllis! It won't hurt her to test herself under new
conditions, but I hope she will feel that she can come back to us
soon," said Mrs. Wyndham. "Now, your note, Jessamy? From Mrs. Van Alyn,
isn't it?"
"I think so," said Jessamy, examining the envelop, with that peculiar
carefulness every one bestows on the outside of a letter, instead of
opening it and looking at the signature. "Yes, it is, and she wants
Bab and me to plunge into society; just listen!" she added, when she
finally had opened the note and glanced at its contents.
"'MY DEAR JESSAMY: We are going to have an entertainment, in
aid of the Baby's Hospital, that promises to be quite charming.
It is to be a Masque of Shakspere. The Mr. Lane whom you met
at my house has written or constructed for us a Masque on the
lines of those used in the Elizabethan period, in which many of
Shakspere's characters, culled from all the plays, are introduced.
He has used the Shaksperian text as far as possible, connecting
it with original matter to bring out the very simple plot--it is
practically but a meeting between all the dear characters whom we
know, but who have hitherto never known one another. I beg you to
help in this merrymaking, you and Barbara, and implore your mother
to allow you to do so. First of all, I need you; secondly, you
have been too long recluses from your old acquaintances, from whom
mere change of circumstances should not wholly debar you. Jessamy
is to be _Miranda_, for good and sufficient reasons, and Babbie
will be, if she will, _Beatrice_. She is not quite large enough
to realize exactly one's conception of "dear Lady Disdain," but
she is admirably adapted for her otherwise, having by nature much
of that young woman's ready wit and her loving heart, imperfectly
concealed by the saucy tongue. I have asked your Doctor Tom to be
_Benedick_--an added reason for our _Beatrice_ to be a success, if
my observations the last few times that I have seen Bab with him
and marked her snubbing of him are correct. It will be a delightful
frolic, for we all love play-acting, and it will be a remarkably
pretty affair if it goes well. So don't refuse me, dear Jessamy
and Barbara, and tell your mother I say that it is as wrong to hide
her daughters in a Harlem flat as to hide her light under a bushel.
Say yes at once, and oblige your friend, MARY VAN ALYN.'"
"It sounds beautiful, doesn't it, mama?" said Jessamy. "Do you think it
would be wise for us to begin to nibble at forbidden fruit? You know we
can't afford the time nor money to be gay very often."
Barbara's cheeks had been rosy red since Jessamy had read the allusion
to Tom, which showed that her desire to treat him indifferently had
overshot the mark. "It might be rather stupid," she said. "We don't
know who will be with us."
"Mrs. Van Alyn will not ask any but acceptable young people, and it
seems to me we can hardly refuse anything she suggests for you," said
Mrs. Wyndham. "She has been your best friend all your lives--heavenly
kind since the trouble came. You will enjoy it, and she is right to
draw you into something bright and youthful. I certainly consent, and
urge you to take part in the masque. Write your acceptance before you
go out."
"I'm only too delighted, if you think it won't upset us, mama," said
Jessamy, with a beaming face, as she opened her desk. "I should love to
try to act a little, and Mrs. Van Alyn has given us the dearest parts!
Bab will be a splendid _Beatrice_, though she is small."
The note of acceptance was despatched, and from that moment the little
home was a whirl of excitement. Fortunately, Violet had the talent
of her race for cooking, else the Wyndham family might have died of
starvation, for neither Jessamy nor Barbara could get her mind down to
practical things.
Rehearsals began at once. The masque proved to be very clever and
pretty, the plot a dream, in which most of the best-beloved people in
Shakspere's plays met, talked, told the story of their lives subsequent
to the ending of the play in which they had moved, straightened out
tangles, showed that sorrowful events were all a mistake and had never
happened, and ended at the last in a beautiful old English dance, which
faded away into a background of shadow, in which finally all were lost
to sight and were understood to have gone back into the 1623 folio
whence they had emerged.
The return of Jessamy and Barbara to the set which had been theirs
was hailed by most of their friends with pleasure. Many of them had
called on the Wyndhams when misfortune first befell them, but finding
them boarding, with no satisfactory place in which to receive their
friends, and meeting them no more in the houses and places of amusement
they frequented, had ceased making efforts to hunt them up. Many of
the girls came out during the winter spent by the Wyndhams at the
"Blackboard," and the life of a débutante leaves little time for extra
pursuits, even the pursuit of former acquaintances, so the Wyndhams
had been suffered to drop out of mind rather through indifference and
pressure of interests than from unkindness.
One girl there was--Grace Hammond--who hailed their reappearance
with anything but rapture. Grace Hammond's father was an old friend
of Mrs. Van Alyn and of her brothers, who had made the fatal mistake
of marrying an entirely worldly woman, with a thoroughly vulgar love
of mere wealth, and Grace, unfortunately, had inherited her mother's
nature, not her father's--a nature carefully fostered by that mother's
training. Mr. Hammond's fortune had been swallowed up in a Wall Street
venture; he had not been able to get beyond a sufficient income in
his efforts to make another, efforts seriously hampered by his wife's
extravagance. It was the intention of both Grace and her mother that
Mrs. Van Alyn's beautiful house, wealth, social standing, and exquisite
breeding should be Grace's backing in her presentation to the world,
counting on the claim of old friendship for Grace's father. Under these
circumstances, the advent of the Wyndhams was especially provoking, the
more so that Grace could not compete with Barbara for prettiness, wit,
and charm, while Jessamy was an avowed beauty.
It would not do to betray the envy and bitterness she felt, so Grace
did what people of her type generally do--smiled sweetly in public and
bided her time to oust or mortify those whom she chose to consider her
rivals.
Jessamy and Barbara were not long in discovering that Grace hated
them, but Mrs. Van Alyn was blissfully unconscious that one of the
young people she loved to have about her was consumed with jealous
spitefulness.
The great night came at last; it was the middle of May, and warm. Mrs.
Van Alyn's long parlors, where first the play was to have been given,
were found inadequate to the guests who applied for tickets, and a
small theater, closed for the season, had been secured without cost,
as the masque was given for charity; only the lighting and similar
expenses were incurred in its use. The prospect of appearing, as Bab
said, "really on the boards, and not on carpet politely called the
boards," was tremendously exciting. It seemed to change the whole
affair, solemnizing it into something little short of professional. All
the actors had to have hasty training in speaking and walking on a real
stage, given at the last moment by a real actor and actress, who had
taken up the masque with enthusiasm, and had done all in their power to
perfect the young Shaksperians.
Jessamy and Barbara were wild with excitement. If it had not been for
their mother, Phyllis's home bulletins would have been meager and
delirious during these thrilling weeks, but Mrs. Wyndham kept "the
stray unit of their four times one are four," as she called Phyllis,
informed of the progress of the housekeeping and the revels.
Jessamy and Barbara set out dinnerless on the night of their "first
appearance on any stage," as Jessamy reminded her mother it was,
appetite lost in excitement.
She and Bab shared their dressing-room--what a delicious feeling of
importance it gave them to know it was a dressing-room used by a real
actress during the season!
Jessamy's _Miranda_ costume was most beautiful; perhaps none of the
others quite equaled it in poetic beauty, though most of the other
costumes were more splendid. It was sea-green and white, hung with
pearls and shells and narrow ribbon made to represent seaweed. A gauzy
veil, white and filmy as sea-foam, floated from her beautiful hair,
which hung, half loose, half confined with pearls, about her shoulders.
Little Barbara looked her best in white and gold, with devices for
increasing her height, and her hair piled high on her saucy head, held
tilted scornfully as became both her actual self and _Beatrice_.
Grace Hammond was _Viola_, not in doublets, but in a short skirt,
with sword at side and a rakish cap set boyishly on her dark hair.
_Ophelia_--come to life, as the lines explained, for she had not been
drowned, but had revived when they laid her in the grave--and _Juliet_
and _Desdemona_, both happily resuscitated after the curtain had fallen
on the play, and now come forth to prove it to those who loved and
mourned them, _Hermione_, _Rosalind_, _Cordelia_, _Portia_, _Katherine_
the Shrew, and _Katherine_ the Queen, _Queen Constance_, _Titania_,
_Hero_, and a few of the lesser known of Shakspere's lovable women,
shyly opened their dressing-room doors one by one, and went to the
wings to join _Ferdinand_, _Benedick_, _Romeo_, _Bassanio_, _Othello_,
_Hamlet_, _Laertes_, _Orlando_, and all the other gallants in velvets,
satins, laces, and ribbons, with _Malvolio_, gartered and bedizened, to
lead the opening march.
The masque was but half an hour late in beginning, a wonderful feat
of promptness for an amateur charitable entertainment. The curtain
rose upon the pretty setting and a picturesque grouping of all the
characters, which, immediately after the applause greeting it had begun
to die away, broke up into a march to display the individual beauty
concealed in the whole.
Then the masque proper began. There was, naturally, considerable
difference in the talents of the actors, but their training had
been good, and none was conspicuously bad. Grace Hammond acted
with real ability, although she did not understand the character
of _Viola_, construing her by her boyish costume rather after the
spirit of _Katherine_. Jessamy's _Miranda_ was the admiration of all
beholders--sweet, innocent, alluring--all that a sea princess should
be--while Bab charmed the most fastidious with her _Beatrice_, burred
like a chestnut exteriorly, but womanly sweet and true of heart within.
Murmurs from the wings, plaudits from the audience, showed Grace that
the Wyndhams, and more especially Barbara, whom she disliked more than
Jessamy, were carrying off the honors of the evening, and her petty
soul was filled with rage and bitterness.
There came a moment when Barbara had her most effective bit of acting.
It was _Ophelia's_ entrance, and _Beatrice_ was to rush to her with
a glad cry at seeing her return from the grave. Grace, as _Viola_,
stood directly in the center. Barbara, from the left of the stage,
saw _Ophelia_ crossing from the right, and sprang forward. Grace made
a motion as if to free herself from something interfering with her
skirt, short though it was, and stepped slightly forward, as she did so
contriving to extend the point of her sword toward the swift feet of
_Beatrice_. Barbara did not see--indeed, there was no time to see--the
malicious act. She bounded forward, and fell headlong, face downward,
on the stage. Mr. Lane, in the wings, directing and watching his play
with all the nervousness of a young author, said something vigorous and
excusable under the circumstances, turning whiter than he was before at
the sight of the accident.
"The miserable girl!" he muttered. "She has spoiled the play!"
Tom, as _Benedick_, was not far off; standing near Grace, he saw
plainly the entire action. With great presence of mind, he leaped to
Barbara's assistance. Stooping, he raised her, helped her free her
feet from her entangling skirt, and whispered: "Are you hurt, Bab?
For goodness sake, pull yourself together and go on!"
Barbara was shaken by the force of her fall, and mortified almost
beyond bearing. Tom's voice steadied her a little, and she managed to
whisper: "Not seriously, Tom; but what shall I do?"
"Don't let that beast of a girl down you," he whispered back. "Say
something in reply to me." Then, aloud, he said, laughing: "'Tis the
first time, dear Lady Disdain, I have caught you tripping. That I
should live to see the day that proud _Beatrice_ throws herself at my
feet! But, faith, dear lady, I have long guessed you liked me well."
Barbara tossed her head in approved _Beatrician_ fashion. "'Tis my
feet, and not my head, hath tripped, good my lord. 'Twas joy at sight
of sweet _Ophelia_ there somewhat overcame me, and at her feet, not
yours, I lie prostrate. _Ophelia, Ophelia_, and are you really among
the living?" And from this point the dialogue continued as in the
manuscript.
There were many among the audience who understood what had happened,
and the rest guessed; everybody recognized and admired the pluck that
carried Barbara through a humiliating situation. The entire house rose
and shouted, and from the wings came applause no less hearty. Mr. Lane
was beside himself with delight. "Such a girl!" he cried rapturously
to the world in general. "I never saw such grit! And she saved my
play--she and Leighton, bless 'em! Her voice was shaking when she
spoke, yet she got herself in hand and went on! I tell you, I never
_saw_ such grit."
At the end of the play, Barbara and Tom had to reply to a separate
recall, an honor that made Grace set her teeth hard. Her spite had
turned against herself; she was furious, humiliated, for many knew
that she had acted as she had done purposely, and she felt sure that
her chance of Mrs. Van Alyn's favor had gone forever.
A little supper served later to the actors at Mrs. Van Alyn's gave Bab
her opportunity for revenge, and perhaps won for her more than the
plaudits of the evening, delightful though they had been. In a few
moments' talk snatched with Jessamy, she had decided that it would be
both kind and finer to shelter Grace from the consequences of her own
meanness. Not one of the actors but stood aloof from the girl after the
fatal moment when she had thrust out her sword to trip Barbara and had
upset her own reputation. At the supper, looking at Grace's crimson,
sullen face, Barbara began actually to pity her, fortified in Christian
sentiments by the petting she herself was receiving on all hands, and
the way Grace was shunned.
As they rose from the table, Bab slipped around to Grace's chair. "I'm
sorry you hate me, Grace," she said. "I think I never harmed you; but
if we are not friends, at least on the surface, all these people will
imagine you put out that sword purposely, and you will be dropped by
every one you care to know. Be friends with me, Grace; I will help
you, and you will be glad later that the little slip of temper was
covered up."
Grace looked up, and Grace looked down. It had not seemed possible that
she could be redder than before, but a fresh wave of color spread to
her hair, then receded, leaving her deadly white. Something good there
was in the girl, and Barbara had touched it. She turned and kissed Bab,
then burst out crying before them all. "Barbara Wyndham is a saint and
a trump," she sobbed. "I was jealous of her--"
"There, never mind," interrupted Bab, this time with no need of effort
in her kindness, for her warm little heart was melted. "Grace and I
are friends, so if I am satisfied, surely no one else need ask what
happened, nor imagine she meant to harm me. You are all her friends
too, aren't you; and we all think she was a great _Viola_, don't we?"
"Splendid! Fine! Lovely!" murmured the guests, and Barbara kissed Grace
before them all.
Tom took Barbara home that night, while Mr. Lane was the escort of the
_Miranda_, whom he seemed to think embodied the charms of land and sea
sprites. The girls begged to be allowed to walk a little way toward
home, longing for fresh air after the exciting evening, and Mrs. Van
Alyn made an exception for once to her rule of allowing no young guest
to leave her house late except in her carriage.
"I can't tell you how I respect and admire you to-night, Bab," said
Tom, earnestly, as he shook her hot little hand in parting. "You are a
first-rate actress, but you're more--a first-rate lady."
"Don't praise me, Tom," said Bab, gently; she seemed to have played out
her rôle of "dear Lady Disdain" for the time. "It was less goodness
than a desire to be above all such meanness, I am afraid. I'm rather
proud, Tom, and that is not creditable."