The room in which Mrs. Hawthorne went to bed an hour or two after taking
leave of the dwindling company at Villa Foss was large and luxurious.
Its windows were enormous, arched at the top and reaching the floor. A
wrought-iron railing outside made them safe. In the angle of the wall
between two of them--it was a corner room--stood a mirror nearly the
size of the windows, in a broad frame of carved and gilt wood, resting
on a marble shelf that supported besides two alabaster vases holding
bunches of roses.
In the corner opposite to the mirror and placed "catty-corner," as the
occupier worded it, stood the stateliest of beds, upholstered and draped
in heavy watered silk of a dull, even dingy, yellow. Its hangings were
gathered at the top into the hollow of a great gold coronet, whence they
spread and fell in folds that were looped back with silk cords. The
walls were covered by that same texture of dull gold, held in place by
tarnished gilt moldings.
Mrs. Hawthorne had wanted all this dusty and faded splendor removed,--it
seemed to her the possible lurking-place of mice or worse,--but the
agent would not hear of it. The noble landlord was not really eager to
let.
So Mrs. Hawthorne, to brighten the room in spite of it, for she wished
to keep it for her own, having taken a fancy to the fresco
overhead,--that fascinating chariot driven among clouds by a radiant
youth surrounded by smiling, flower-scattering maidens,--Mrs. Hawthorne
to "gay up" the room, as she said, had hung windows and doors with
draperies of her favorite cornflower blue, and covered the chairs with
the same. On the floor she had stretched a pearl-gray carpet all aglow
with wreaths of roses tied with ribbons of blue; and over the carpet--at
the bedside, before the dressing-table, in front of the fireplace--laid
down white bear-skins.
To cover further the yellow silk, she had hung in one panel of it a
painting of the "Madonna della Seggiola," in another, Carlo Dolci's
"Angel of the Annunciation," and in another, Carlo Dolci's Magdalen
clasping the box of ointment--all works of art bought in Via dei Fossi,
framed in great gilt-wood frames, like the mirror.
The lace curtains under the cornflower blue brocade were like Brussels
wedding veils seen through a magnifying glass.
Yes, the room had been made to look bright. It had lamps of
cream-colored biscuit, painted with roses and crowned with pink shades;
it had polished brass fire-irons. But the point of supreme brightness
was the dressing-table, where glittered in orderly display Mrs.
Hawthorne's American toilet silver, mirror, trays, brushes, boxes,
bottles--solid, shining, richly embossed.
There was just one thing in all the room that looked poor, workaday. It
was on the small table at the head of the bed, beside the candle-stick
and match-safe, a black book, the commonest kind of Bible, such a Bible
as is dispensed by those who have to furnish the sacred writings in
large numbers--Sunday schools, for instance.
It was in fact a Sunday-school prize that now lay on the night-stand, in
what the sober volume presented to a pious little girl must have thought
strange company. Cover to cover with it, cheek by jowl, lay a book on
etiquette.
It was for the Bible, however, that Mrs. Hawthorne reached after she had
got into bed. She found her place. She read in it every night before
sleeping, to keep a promise made long ago, and avoid the reproaches of a
person gone from this earth, but who still, she never questioned, could
be pleased or displeased with her actions.
She did not always try to understand or follow; when she was sleepy she
read merely with her eyes. To-night her mind was too full of personal
things to permit of strict attention to the text. As she enumerated the
wonders of the House that Solomon built for the Lord, there formed no
picture of it in her mind.
"I wonder what knops are," she said to herself drowsily. "I must
remember to ask Hattie."
There was a stir. Both doors of her room were open; the little
unobtrusive one into the dressing-room for air,--the window there stood
wide open through the night,--the large one into the sitting-room so as
to leave a free road to Miss Madison's room beyond. Through this now
slipped a slender form in a soft, fur-bordered wrapper, and with front
locks done up in curling-kids.
"You in bed?"
"Yes; I'm just reading my chapter."
"Livvy gone?"
Livvy, or Miss Deliverance Jones, was the maid they had brought from
America, a New York negress of the most faintly colored complexion, with
hair mysteriously blond. Her head was egg-shaped, her nose slightly
flat, her lip voluptuous, her brown-black eye sad as a homesick
monkey's; but she could wind a chocolate veil about her face and stylish
hat, and walk forth happy in the fancy that she passed for white. She
was an accomplished dressmaker and hair-dresser; she moreover had spent
some time in the service of a beauty-doctor. The ladies had secured her
just before sailing, and liked her, but did not talk freely when she was
present.
"Yes, she's gone."
"I'm not a bit sleepy, are you? I'm too excited. Let's talk."
She climbed on to her friend's bed, gathered her knees to her chin, and
hugged them, with the effect of hugging to herself a great happiness.
Mrs. Hawthorne closed her Bible and put it aside. The single candle by
which she had been reading showed the shining mirthfulness of the eyes
with which the two regarded each other.
"Wasn't it fun?"
"Oh, wasn't it!"
They spoke softly, whether because the suggestion of the late hour was
upon them, or they thought, without thinking, that Livvy might still be
near. They whispered like school-girls who have come together in
forbidden fun.
"I never did have such a good time."
"Nor I, neither. Oh, Hat, _isn't it_ fun!"
"_Isn't it_, just!"
"See here, Hat, you've got to teach me to dance. I was almost crazy this
evening, I wanted so to be dancing with the rest. Where d'you learn?"
"I went to dancing-school, my dear."
"No! Did you?"
"Yes, I did; all one winter. What are you thinking about? I've been to
parties in my life. Not many, but I've been. There was the Home Club
party----"
"Yes, of course. I remember how I teased once to go to the Home Club
party; but ma wouldn't let me. I hadn't anything to put on, anyhow. But
I'd have gone in my shirt if they'd let me. The nearest to a real party
I'd been to before to-night was a clam-bake. I don't count church
sociables. Out West there used to be celebrations in a sort of bar-room
place, but even I couldn't stand those. To think I've always yearned so
to have a good time, and now I'm having it! Oh, Hat, wasn't it lovely!
That's a mighty nice house of the Fosses. How good it looked, all fixed
up! The flowers and candles, one room opening into the other, everything
just right. Hat, Mrs. Foss is the finest woman I ever knew, and in my
opinion makes the most elegant appearance. She's the one I'd choose to
be like if I could. Just watch me copy-cat her. You'll see. 'My dear
Mrs. Hawthorne, pray don't speak of the trouble! It's been nothing but a
pleasure. Be sure you call upon us whenever we can be of the smallest
service.'"
"You've caught her, Nell, you silly thing! Down to the ground."
"I'm going to pattern after her till it comes natural. How sweet they
all are! How kind they've been!" Mrs. Hawthorne grew dreamy.
"Your dress, Nell, was a perfect success," the other ran on--"perfect.
How did you think mine looked? I'll tell you a compliment I got for you,
if you'll tell me one you got for me. If not, I'll save it up in my
secret breast till you're ready to make a trade."
"To think," said Mrs. Hawthorne, still engrossed by her dream of absent
and bygone things, "that we're the same little girls--and one of them
barefoot!--who used to play house together on a sand-heap of old Cape
Cod and pin on any old rag that would tail along the ground and play
ladies! 'My dear Mrs. Madison, how do you do?'"
"'My dear Mrs. Hawthorne, my toes are just as sore as they can be!'"
"'That comes, my dear Mrs. Madison, of you dancing like a crazy woman
from ten o'clock till one, in tight shoes!'--Mrs. Hawthorne! Mrs.
Madison! Aurora! Estelle! To think, after all these years, we should be
playing our old play that we played at Wellfleet and East Boston, only
playing it with real things, in Paris and Florence!"
"Nell, I'm so afraid of forgetting and calling you Nell that every time
I catch myself near doing it I can feel the cold sweat break out on my
brow."
"What would it matter? We aren't impostors, Hat. We're just having fun,
and don't want our real names to queer it. If they should slip out when
we aren't thinking, they'd simply sound like nicknames we've got for
each other. But they won't slip out. I'm too fond of calling you
Estelle. Don't you _love_ to call me Aurora? Hat, how did I behave,
far as you could see?"
"Nell, if I hadn't known you, and had just been seeing you for the first
time, I should have said to myself: 'What a fine, good-looking,
beautifully dressed, refined, and ladylike woman that is! Wish t' I
might make her acquaintance.' And what would you have said, if you'd
seen me, never having met me before?"
"I should have said: 'What a bright, smart, intelligent, and rarely
beautiful girl! So well dressed, too, and slender as a worm! A queen of
society. I do like her looks! She's the spittin' image of my little
friend Hattie Carver, the schoolmarm in East Boston, that I used to
know!' Oh, Hat, the _queerest_ thing! What do you suppose I saw
this evening at that lovely house full of lovely people? I was in the
library learning to dance. And I looked up and there was what I took to
be a young man smoking a cigarette. Next thing, I saw that his dress was
low-necked almost down to the waist. Hat, it was a _woman_ smoking!
a woman with her hair cut short. I never saw anything like it, except an
old Irishwoman once, with her pipe."
"Seems to me I've heard of ladies in Europe doing it, and it being
considered all right. I _have_ heard that some do it in New York,
but I guess they're careful not to be seen."
"Well, it does seem a queer thing to do!--Go ahead, Hat; what was the
compliment?"
"Sure, now, you've got one for me?"
"Sure."
"It was What's-his-name, the English fellow we see every time we go in
to Cook's--Mr. Dysart. Leslie says he comes of a very good family. He
said to me, 'How very charming Mrs. Hawthorne is looking this evening!'"
"Hattie, that man's a humbug, that man's leading a double life. He said
to me, 'How very charming Miss Madison is looking this evening!' He
did."
"Go 'way! You're making it up to save trouble."
"No, I ain't! Stop, Hattie! I know! I _am not_. Confusion upon it!
You've made me so nervous when I talk that I can't say ain't without
jumping as if I'd sat on a pin!"
"Nell Goodwin, look me square in the eye. How many times did you say
ain't at the party this evening?"
"Not once; I swear it. I was looking out every minute. 'I am not,' I
said; 'We are not,' I said; 'He doesn't,' I said; 'He isn't,' I said.
There! Between you'n' I, Hat, it's a dreadful nuisance, keeping my mind
on the way I talk. I hope I shall come in time to talking lofty without
thinking about it. Why do I have to, Hat, after all? I've lived among
educated people. Wasn't the Judge highly educated? And nobody ever found
fault with my way of talking. My folks all had been to school and read
books. And didn't I go to school till I was fourteen? And didn't I
graduate from the grammar school with the rest? What's the matter with
my natural way of talking?"
"It's all right at home, Nell, but it's different over here. They're a
different kind of people we're thrown with."
"This pernickety way of talking never sounds cozy or friendly one bit.
We're as good as anybody, of course, but when I say 'I am not, he does
not,' I always feel as if I were setting up to be better than the
rest!--Oh, it isn't, is it? Oh, do you say so? 'Between you and I' isn't
correct? But I thought you told me.... To Jericho, Hattie! How's a
feller ever going to get to know?"
"Listen, Nell, while I go over it again. When you say----"
"Ah, no! Not at this time of night, Estelle! Let me live in ignorance
till morning! You know all those sorts of things, my dear Estelle,
because you're paid by the government to know them. I don't; but I know
lots and lots of things that are a sight funnier."
She grabbed one of the pillows and flung it at her friend, who flung it
back at her; and the simple creatures laughed.
Aurora re-tied in a bow the blue ribbon that closed the collar of her
nightgown, and settled back again, with her arms out on the white satin
quilt, flowered with roses and lined with blue. The two braids of her
fair hair lay, one on each side, down her big, frank, undisguised bosom.
"You heaping dish of vanilla ice-cream!" said Hattie.
"You stick of rhubarb!" said Nell. "Stop, Hat! Behave! Do you suppose
all the people we've invited to come and see us will come?"
"Doctor Chandler will come. And the Hunt girls will come. And Madame
Bentivoglio I guess will come."
"Yes, and the Satterlees I'm sure will come. And Mrs. Seymour and her
daughter that I said I'd help with the church fair. And the minister;
what was it? Spottiswood."
"And won't the Mr. Hunt come that you seemed to be having such a good
time with?"
"Yes, he'll come. He'll come to-morrow, I shouldn't wonder. Then that
thinnish fellow with the hair like a hearth-brush--did you meet him? Mr.
Fane, a great friend of the Fosses. He's coming to take us
sight-seeing." She yawned a wide, audible yawn. "I only hope there'll be
some fun in it. Confound you, Hat, go to bed!"