MY BALL
Mallowbanks, November thirtieth.
_Bad_, _dear_, _bad Carin_:
You didn’t come to my party! Oh, wretched, false friend, best and most
cherished, why did you not come? Can it be that a mere desire to have
higher marks than anyone else in school caused you to desert me in my
hour of triumph? It was that, I know. You are trying to get that old
Phi Beta Kappa key—which you’ll not wear after you _do_ get it. I call
it intellectual pride, I do indeed.
Keefe couldn’t come either. He had an order to do a portrait for some
Great Lady. So he wouldn’t even think of coming. He said he was in the
Right Mood for Work, and he expected me to tremble before those awful
words, just as you expected me to tremble before your Phi Beta Kappa
record. You two, doing your duty with all your might and leaving me
alone in my frivolity! I call it shabby of you.
Well, anyway, Annie Laurie came and Barbara Summers with her. Barbara
put little Jonathan in the care of Aunt Zillah Pace, and she kept saying
that she felt perfectly all right about him, though one could see that
she didn’t. It was the first time she ever had left him overnight, and
so it was natural for her to feel nervous. Though, as you know, Jonathan
is going to insist on being taken care of, and if there is anything he
wants he is going to have it. He is such a dear that no one can refuse
him anything, as I know to my cost! The treasures of mine that child has
broken!
Yes, those two came, and I leave you to imagine how happy it made me.
There was my little brown Barbara with her sweet voice and her shy-eager
eyes, all dressed so quaintly, and being so desirous of pleasing
everyone, and yet holding to her own ideas with that darling dignity of
hers; and there was my big, glorious Annie Laurie Pace with her red hair
and her definite ways, trying to be frivolous with the rest of us, and
looking like a preoccupied Diana all the time. I had some fears that
when the folk at Mallowbanks learned that what she really was preoccupied
with was her own dairy, that they might cast her into the outer darkness
where the vast company of people-the-Knoxes-do-not-know drag out their
miserable lives. But no, the vast fields of Annie Laurie—they did not
lose a rod in my description of them—the cattle on a thousand hills, more
or less, and the well trained force of helpers appealed to their
imagination. They regarded her as a Planter—or a Plantress. She was
accepted. And she was accepted all the more because she really and truly
didn’t care much whether she was or not. Annie Laurie came to
Mallowbanks for the sole purpose of making me happy, and she certainly
succeeded. I put her in my room, and I slept on a lounge in the dressing
room. So we contrived to be together, and of course, just like the girls
in the song, we let down our hair before the fire after the ball.
But I must come to the subject of the ball.
To begin with, Mallowbanks was full of guests who had come to stay for
two nights, or four, or seven, as the case might be. They were kin or
near-kin, or old neighbors who were as dear as kin, and they all called
each other by their first names. All the men, or nearly all, had
military or judicial titles; and the women were lovely and, in a way,
willful—because they had been much loved, I suppose. From first to last
it seemed to me like one of my old dreams and nothing else.
My coming-out party was in several parts.
To begin with, there was the afternoon reception. Ladies, mostly, came
to that, though there were some men, too. This was preceded by a
luncheon for forty. (There were little tables scattered all over the
drawing-room, as well as the dining room.) The next day there was a
ball. That was the culmination. And all week there have been rides and
drives and dinners and breakfasts and teas. I have met hundreds of
people. I like them all. I love none, save the people here in my own
house, and Annie Laurie and my little Barbara. I met Ravanels and Grévys
and Bryces, but one and all neglected to ask my hand in marriage. There
was, indeed, only one I would think of marrying, and, Oh, you
yellow-headed little Hun, I had not talked with him three minutes before
I knew that he was your Southerner.
“I have a great many messages for you from your friend Miss Carson,” said
he to me.
“Oh,” I said right out, like the simple mountain person I am, “are you
the—”
Then, of course, I stopped and turned a strange and beautiful red,
something, I imagine, the color of a faded American beauty rose.
“Yes,” he said smiling, “I am. At least I hope I am. I’m not sure.”
“What, please,” I said, “is your name? I know all about your noble
qualities, but I do not know your name.”
“My name,” he said, “is Vance Grévy.”
“Oh!” was all I could say, thinking how this was probably the particular
person madam grandmother had picked out for me. Of course I couldn’t
keep back my silly self-conscious grin, and he smiled in much the same
way I did.
“May I present you,” I said, feeling very “heady,” the way Paprika used
to on a cold morning, “to my madam grandmother?”
“Thank you,” he said, “I have just had the honor of talking with her.
You were so surrounded that I waited for a moment before venturing to
come to you.”
He smiled more than ever. I summoned my courage. I think it was my
courage. Perhaps it didn’t deserve so good a name.
“May I inquire what she said to you?”
“Do you really want to hear?”
“More than anything.”
“And you’ll not lay it up against me?” he badgered.
“On my honor!”
“Then she said: ‘My dear Mr. Grévy, you are, I take it, the grandson of
my old friend.’ She put up her lorgnette and looked me over. ‘Yes, you
are the living image of him! Ah, your grandfather and I were good
friends indeed, at one time, I assure you.’ ‘How I regret,’ I said,
‘that he had two generations the advantage of me.’ The dear little thing
let me kiss her hand. ‘You have his turns of speech, also,’ she said.
Then she asked: ‘Have you seen my granddaughter, the only child of my
dear Jack?’ ‘I am on my way to it,’ I declared. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘we
must see to it, we Knoxes and Ravanels, we Bryces and Grévys, that she
makes no mistakes, must we not?’ She looked at me again through her
lorgnette, appealing apparently to my chivalry. ‘We are a solid
phalanx,’ said I, ‘to see that she comes to no harm.’ ‘We understand
each other,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘Your family never did need
superfluous words.’”
I laughed and laughed.
“I have a friend, Mr. Rowantree,” I said, “who likes to tell me about the
comedy of manners. Isn’t that what madam grandmother plays all of the
time?”
“Just! But isn’t she exquisite? A survival of a splendid old time.”
“Yes. Oh, you can’t think how I admire and love her.”
“Yes, I can. I can very easily think how you do. Shall you confine
yourself in your associations, Miss Knox, to the Ravanels and the Grévys?
Why not cut out the Ravanels?”
“There aren’t many of them left, are there?” I asked more gravely. “And
you—shall I have many Grévy’s to choose from?”
“There’s my great aunt and my mother and my married brother and some
second cousins—nice girls they are, too.”
“Oh, that’s quite a selection. Now tell me about my Carin.”
But just then, of course, we were interrupted, and the only other times I
got a chance to talk with him was when we were dancing together. That
was quite a number of times, because I had him put down three dances for
you, and I acted as your substitute.
All joking aside, Carin, I saw as much of him as I could because I was
determined to find out what he was like. He would have to be so very,
very fine to be worthy of you. I can see, my dear, partly from what you
say and still more from what you do not say, that this is a serious
matter with you. So I dropped all my nonsense and was grave with him,
and he was grave with me, and I liked him—Oh, tremendously. He is
earnest and ambitious and full of the new time. He doesn’t care any more
about family than is right and sensible, and he’s determined to be a fine
and successful man on his own account. What is more, he appreciates you,
Carin! He does! I wouldn’t rest till I had found out whether he did or
not. It is unnecessary to say what a gentleman I think him; and though
he is not exactly handsome, he has a manliness and a grace that is even
better.
Yes, my blessings are all ready for you. Just let me know whenever I am
to bestow them.
Annie Laurie has a tiny, beautiful little diamond on a thread of gold
which she wears on the little finger of her left hand.
“Annie Laurie,” I said, “that ring looks as if it had a history. It has
a kind of a we’d-better-wait-a-while-before-we-tell-our-friends look.”
“Does it, impudent one?” she laughed. “Well, then it looks to be just
what it is. Sam gave it to me.”
“Good Sam Disbrow,” I said. “He’ll be a fine person to live with—not
ashamed in the wrong place nor proud at the wrong time, nor too selfish
nor too unselfish—just sensible and reliable and honest straight
through.”
“He and I understand each other,” said Annie Laurie softly, “perfectly.”
“Of course you do. Why shouldn’t you? Haven’t you taken years and years
to get acquainted? Tell me, does he ever hear anything of his adopted
father, and his family?”
“Not a thing,” said she. “Not one thing.”
“They just ‘went west.’”
“Yes.”
“Have you any other news?”
Annie Laurie burst out laughing.
“Haven’t I, just?”
“About whom, then?”
“Haystack Thompson. Did you know he was courting Hi Kitchell’s ‘ma’?”
“I did. I saw him with a collar on, and no violin. He had combed his
hair; and she wore white cotton gloves.”
“Well, we all thought it was settled. The only thing that worried us was
how Haystack was to care for a wife when he got one. He has always been
more or less like Tommy Tucker, singing for his supper—or rather, playing
on Betsy, his violin. But for a time the violin had to stay in the
background, which made some of us feel rather sad. We hardly liked to
have Haystack settle down like other folks and be domestic and regular.
But we needn’t have worried.”
“No?”
“No. Little Mrs. Kitchell got a new gray Henrietta, and a gray velvet
hat with a real plume, and made herself twelve new of everything, aprons
included, and there was general excitement. The ladies about town began
to give her presents and to insist that they should all be invited to the
wedding, and to ask when it was to be. But Mrs. Kitchell didn’t quite
know. ‘Very soon,’ she said. ‘In a week or two.’ She said that for
quite a while. Then one morning, Haystack disappeared.”
“Oh, Annie Laurie!”
“Yes, he did. Just disappeared. He took Betsy the violin, and left all
his new collars behind. Likewise his suit of blue diagonal that he was
to have been married in. That was all, except a bunch of bittersweet
berries tied with grass, which poor little Anne Kitchell found on her
account book. Under it he had written the word ‘Good-bye.’”
“How did she take it?”
“Well, she sent for Aunt Zillah, and of course Aunt Zillah hurried right
over to her and kept giving her dry handkerchiefs till she got over the
worst of it. I think Aunt Zillah made the reason of his defection clear
to her. ‘You couldn’t shut Mr. Thompson up in a house and keep him there
any more than you could a catamount,’ she told her. ‘He’s a wander man
and a music man. What would he be if he were to settle down and play a
respectable part?’ Little Anne Kitchell admitted it. I liked him
because he was so different from other folks,’ she said. ‘He didn’t seem
to have no care nor trouble, but I suppose if I’d married him, he would
have had.’ ‘Of course he would,’ said Aunt Zillah. ‘He would have had
stepchildren, and they might not have liked him. And you would have
wanted him to be proper and regular in his habits, and he would have
fretted like a caged hawk.’ ‘I reckon it’s all for the best,’ said Anne
Kitchell, and dried her tears. So no more has been heard from Haystack.
He’s free again, drinking out of springs, sleeping in the woods, playing
his violin to squirrels and children and lovers. As for Anne Kitchell,
she is wearing her fine clothes and is setting her cap for a heavy-set
man who has just come to town and set up a feed store.’”
Oh, Carin, isn’t that fun? And aren’t you glad Haystack Thompson got
off? I’d hate to have civilization trap him, wouldn’t you?
Well, well, I started to tell you about my ball. It was a wonderful
ball. We danced in the drawing-room under the luster candelabra, and we
danced down the long corridor with the carved panels. We women were all
shining in beautiful garments, but I haven’t any desire to describe them
to you, except that my little grandmother wore a gown of cloth of silver
and rose point lace and all of her diamonds; and I, to please her—and it
almost drove poor Aunt Lorena wild—chose a queer old silk of hers striped
like ribbon grass in white and greeny-white and faded lilac and mauve.
Over it I draped the thinnest silken lace. Then grandmother gave me a
necklace of darling little pearls, and I had white satin slippers with
little butterflies embroidered on them in greeny-white and faded pink,
and a fan of the same colors, painted with butterfly wings.
“I never saw a coming-out dress like that in all my life,” said Aunt
Lorena.
“Lorena,” said grandmother magnificently, “the Knoxes can afford to do as
they please.”
But for my afternoon reception, to please Aunt Lorena, I wore drifting
white stuff—white everything—and carried Killarney roses, and was just as
conventional as I could be. Aunt Lorena kept pointing to me and saying:
“This is the way I want the child to look,” and at the ball grandmother
said to her old friends: “Wouldn’t you think she was one of us all over
again? Don’t you like a young girl to dress like that?”
Everybody agreed with Aunt Lorena, and everybody agreed with grandmother.
And I was very happy all of the time.
No, I find I’m not going to describe the ball.
Why not?
Oh, because it was vague, after all—just meeting strange people and
dancing with strange people, and trying to think of the right thing to
say when people complimented me—as, of course, they thought they had to
do—and being looked over and being told I was a perfect Knox, and hearing
the music always, always, and feeling the dance get into my toes, and
knowing my cheeks were burning and my eyes flaming, and wanting to put my
face down in the cool moss on the bench of the mountain where the three
tulip trees grow, and drink and drink of my spring till I was cooled in
body and spirit.
[Picture: Azalea’s Coming Out Party]
Yes, Carin, it was like that. I am not ungrateful. I like this life; a
part of me answers to it completely. Yet, somehow, I believe it has come
too late. I feel that sooner or later I shall go back to the mountain
and stay there. I miss the red roads and the misty dawns and the still,
still moonlights, with me answering the whippoorwill and the owl. I miss
Ma McBirney and the little graves under the Pride of India tree. I am
just Azalea the mountain girl after all, I am afraid, though they keep
telling me how gay I am and how I fit into my present life, and
congratulating me because I never seem to be tired.
But I was secretly very tired when at last the week of festivities was
over. There had been a great company of us at Thanksgiving dinner, and
we had seen and tasted all that was most splendid in the way of
Mallowbanks ham and Mallowbanks turkey, and Mallowbanks artichokes and
mince meat, and we had talked and laughed and sung and danced, and bowed
and scraped, and shaken hands and kissed, and at last it was all over.
Even my darling Annie Laurie and my little Barbara were gone. And then I
went up to my own room and closed and bolted the door.
Carin, I wept and wept. I was happy, but I wept. For, someway, after
all, this was not my life. It was not the silver web I meant to weave.
It was something that was being woven for me, and I was only a quite nice
little yellow spider sitting in the midst of it and being admired without
doing a single bit of spinning.
It was not at all what I had planned for myself. I am doing a great deal
of receiving and little or no giving, and it makes me dissatisfied.
Of course I give some happiness to grandmother, and a new responsibility
to Uncle David and Aunt Lorena. But what of my vocation? What of all
the things I learned to do with these two hands of mine? What of the
friendships I made with humble people and needy ones? What of all the
good I was going to do in the world?
Carin, I am very happy. You mustn’t think anything else. But I have
cried a tremendous lot, and I’m going to cry when I feel like it. And by
and by I shall do something. It will not be liked very well at
Mallowbanks—at least, not at first. But we have to be our true selves,
don’t we? Don’t we owe that to—well I don’t know just Whom or What we
owe it to. But we are made so much ourselves that to be anything other
than ourselves is to offend what Kipling calls the God of Things as They
Are.
Dear me, am I too serious? I, who have been making an art of gayety? I
can talk nonsense endlessly, and I rather like to do it. It excites me.
I feel like a young colt when it gets the bit in its teeth and whips off
down the road. Then, if the person I am talking with, feels the same
way, and the two of us dare the other to see who can run away the
hardest—as Mr. Vance Grévy does, for example—then I enjoy myself very
much indeed. Running away is, I can see, very pleasant for a time.
But after all, I am not of a nature to run very far. I can always be
trusted to come home and stand beside the hitching post. It’s my way.
I’m dependable old Azalea after all, and however rattle-brained I may
sound, you can count on me to sober down at the critical moment. I’m
still, Carin, right beside the hitching post.
The only thing I insist on is being hitched up to my own post. And I
don’t believe Mallowbanks is it. It’s a carved, historic, marvelous
post. But is it mine? Well, I’ll not think any more just now.
Father and Mother McBirney write contented letters from Bethal Springs.
People have been very nice to them and they are not lonely. Father is
doing well and feels some loosening up of his “j’ints.” Mother is sewing
for somebody’s baby. Trust her to find someone who needs her. If she
was set down in a desert you’d probably find her nursing a sick scorpion.
I’m going up to see them soon.
Jim is studying his head off at Rutherford Academy and has started a
Young Men’s Christian Association there. Dear Jim! Who would have
thought he could have turned so good? Jim who used to put little green
snakes in my closet!
Carin, when I see you, if I ever do, I will tell you more about the ball.
It was simply grand.
But don’t you just wish we were riding up old Mount Tennyson side by
side, with the crickets singing in the grass, and the saddles going
creak-creak?
Carin, I believe I’m going to cry again.
_Good-bye_,
_Azalea_.
P. S. There, I told you! See that blob? That was the first tear.
Keefe O’Connor writes me stately letters. He says he is glad I have come
into friends and fortune. What does he mean by that? Is he going to
drop me? Carin, he is. He’s that kind of a horrid person who can’t
forgive one for prosperity. They’ll stand by you in adversity but not in
prosperity. I’d just as soon be cut for one as the other, every bit,
wouldn’t you?
_A. McB._ _No_, _I mean A. K._