The Squirrel-Cage Part 18

CHAPTER XIII

LYDIA DECIDES IN PERFECT FREEDOM

The maid had announced to Mrs. Emery, finis.h.i.+ng an unusually careful morning toilet, that Miss Burgess, society reporter of the Endbury _Chronicle_, was below. Before the mistress of the house could finish adjusting her well-matched gray pompadour, a second arrival was heralded, "The gentleman from the greenhouse, to see about Miss Lydia's party decorations." And as the handsome matron came down the stairs a third comer was introduced into the hall--Mme. Boyle herself, the best dressmaker in town, who had come in person to see about the refitting of the debutante's Paris dresses, the debutante having found the change back to the climate of Endbury so trying that her figure had grown quite noticeably thinner.

"It was the one thing necessary to make Maddemwaselle's tournoor exactly perfect," Mme. Boyle told Mrs. Emery. Out of a sense of what was due her loyal Endbury customers, Mme. Boyle a.s.sumed a guileless coloring of Frenchiness, which was evidently a symbol, and no more intended for a pretense of reality than the honestly false brown front that surmounted her competent, kindly Celtic face.

Mrs. Emery stopped a moment by the newel-post to direct Madame to Lydia's room and to offer up a devout thanksgiving to the kindly Providence that constantly smoothed the path before her. "Oh, Madame, just think if it had been a season when hips were in style!" As she continued her progress to what she was beginning to contemplate calling her drawing-room, she glowed with a sense of well-being which buoyed her up like wings. In common with many other estimable people, she could not but value more highly what she had had to struggle to retain, and the exciting vicissitudes of the last fortnight had left her with a sweet taste of victory in her mouth.

She greeted Miss Burgess with the careful cordiality due to an ally of many years' standing, and with a manner perceptibly but indefinably different from that which she would have bestowed on a social equal.

Mrs. Emery had labored to acquire exactly that tone in her dealings with the society reporter, and her achievement of it was a fact which brought an equal satisfaction to both women. Miss Burgess' mother was an Englishwoman, an ex-housekeeper, who had transmitted to her daughter a sense, rare as yet in America, of the beauty and dignity of cla.s.s distinctions. In her turn Miss Burgess herself, the hard-working, good-natured woman of fifty who for twenty years had reported the doings of those citizens of Endbury whom she considered the "gentry," had toiled with the utmost disinterestedness to build up a feeling, or, as she called it, a "tone," which, among other things, should exclude her from equality. When she began she was, perhaps, the only person in town who had an unerring instinct for social differences; but, like a kindly, experienced actor of a minor role in theatricals, she had silently given so many professional tips to the amateur princ.i.p.als in the play, and had acted her own part with such unflagging consistency and good-will, that she had often now the satisfaction of seeing one of her pupils move through her role with a most edifying effect of having been born to it.

Long ago she had taken the Emerys to her warm heart and she had rejoiced in all their upward progress with the sweet unenvious joy of an ugly woman in a pretty, much-loved sister's successes. Lydia was to her, as to Mrs. Emery, a bright symbol of what she would fain have been herself.

Miss Burgess' feeling for her somewhat resembled that devout affection which, she had read, was felt by faithful old servants of great English families for the young ladies of the house. The pathetic completeness of her own insignificance of aspect had spared her any uneasy ambitions for personal advancement, and it is probable that the vigor of her character and her pleasure in industry were such that she had been happier in her daily column and weekly five-column _Society Notes_ than if she had been as successful a society matron as Mrs. Emery herself.

She lived the life of a creator, working at an art she had invented, in a workroom of her own contriving, loyally drawing the shutters to shade an unfortunate occurrence in one of the best families, setting forth a partial success with its best profile to the public, and flooding with light real achievements like Mrs. Hollister's rose party (_the_ Mrs.

Hollister--Paul's aunt, and Madeleine's). All that she wrote was read by nearly every woman in Endbury. She was a person of importance, and a very busy and happy old maid.

Mrs. Emery had a great taste for Miss Burgess' conversation, admiring greatly her whole-hearted devotion to Endbury's social welfare. She had once said of her to Dr. Melton, "There is what _I_ call a public-spirited woman." He had answered, "I envy Flora Burgess with the fierce embittered envy I feel for a cow"--an ambiguous compliment which Mrs. Emery had resented on behalf of her old ally.

Now, as Mrs. Emery added to her greeting, "You'll excuse me just a moment, won't you, I must settle some things with my decorator," Miss Burgess felt a rich content in her hostess' choice of words. There _were_ people in Endbury society who would have called him, as had the perplexed maid, "the gentleman from the greenhouse." Later, asked for advice, she had walked about the lower floor of the house with Mrs.

Emery and the florist, saturated with satisfaction in the process of deciding where the palms should be put that were to conceal the "orchestra" of four instruments, and with what flowers the mantels should be "banked."

After the man had gone, they settled to a consideration of various important matters which was interrupted by an impa.s.sioned call of Madame Boyle from the stairs, "Could she bring Maddemwaselle down to show this _perfect_ fit?"--and they glided into a rapt admiration of the unwrinkled surface of peach-colored satin which clad Lydia's slender and flexibly erect back. When she turned about so that Madame could show them the truly exqueese effect of the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g at the throat, her face showed pearly shadows instead of its usual flower-like glow. As Madame left the room for a moment, Miss Burgess said, with a kind, respectful facetiousness, "I see that even fairy princesses find the emotions of getting engaged a little trying."

Lydia started, and flushed painfully. "Oh, Mother--" she began.

Her mother cut her short. "My _dear_! Miss Burgess!" she pointed out, as who should deplore keeping a secret from the family priest, "You know she never breathes a word that people don't want known. And she had to be told so she can know how to _put_ things all this winter."

"I'm sure it's the most wonderfully _suitable_ marriage," p.r.o.nounced Miss Burgess.

A ring at the door-bell was instantly followed by the bursting open of the door and the impetuous onslaught of a girl, a tall, handsome, brown-eyed blonde about Lydia's age, who, wasting no time in greetings to the older women, flung herself on Lydia's neck with a wild outcry of jubilation. "My dear! Isn't it dandy! Perfectly _dandy_! Paul met me at the train last night and when he told me I nearly swooned for joy! Of all the tickled sisters-in-law! I wanted to come right over here last night, but Paul said it was a secret, and wouldn't let me." A momentary failure of lung-power forced her to a pause in which she perceived Lydia's attire. She recoiled with a dramatic rush. "Oh, you've got one of them _on_! Lydia, how insanely swell you do look! Why, Mrs.

Emery"--she turned to Lydia's mother with a light-hearted unconsciousness that she had not addressed her before--"she doesn't look _real_, does she!"

There was an instant's pause as the three women gazed ecstatically at Lydia, who had again turned her back and was leaning her forehead against the window. Then the girl sprang at her again. "Well, my goodness, Lydia! I just love you to pieces, of course, but if we were of the same complexion I should certainly put poison in your candy. As it is, me so blonde and you so dark--I tell you what--what we won't do this winter--" She ran up to her again, putting her arms around her neck from behind and whispering in her ear.

Miss Burgess turned to her hostess with her sweet, motherly smile.

"Aren't girls the _dearest_ things?" she whispered. "I love to see them so young, and full of their own little affairs. I think it's dreadful nowadays how so many of them are allowed to get serious-minded."

Madeleine was saying to Lydia, "You sly little thing--to land Paul before the season even began! Where are you going to get your lingerie?

Oh, _isn't_ it fun? If I go abroad I'll smuggle it back for you. You haven't got your ring yet, I don't suppose? Make him make it a ruby.

That's ever so much sweller than that everlasting old diamond. He's something to land, too, Paul is, if I do say it--not, of course, that we've either of us got any money, but," she looked about the handsomely furnished house, "you'll have lots, and Paul'll soon be making it hand over fist--and I'll be marrying it!" She ended with a triumphant pirouette her vision of the future, and encountered Madame Boyle, entering with a white and gold evening wrap which sent her into another paroxysm of admiration. The dressmaker had just begun to say that she thought another line of gold braid around the neck would--when Mrs.

Emery, looking out of the window, declared the caterer to be approaching and that she _must_ have aid from her subordinates before he should enter. "I do _not_ want to have that old red lemonade and sweet crackers everybody has, and slabs of ice-cream floating around on your plate.

Think quick, all of you! What kind of crackers can we have?"

"Animal crackers," suggested Madeleine, with the accent of a remark intended to be humorous, drawing Lydia into a corner. "Now, don't make Lydia work. She's _It_ right now, and everything's to be done for her.

Madame, come over here with that cloak and let's see about the--and Oh, you and Lydia, for the love of Heaven tell me what I'm to do about this fas.h.i.+on for no hips, and me with a figure of eight! Lydia, the fit of that thing is _sublime_!"

"Maddemwaselle, don't you see how a little more gold right here--"

"Here, Lydia," called her mother, "it wasn't the caterer after all; it's flowers for you. Take it over there to the young lady in pink," she directed the boy.

Madeleine seized on the box, and tore it open with one of her vigorous, competent gestures. "_Orchids!_" she shouted in a single volcanic burst of appreciation. "I never had orchids sent me in my life! Paul must have telegraphed for them. You can't buy them in Endbury. And here's a note that says it's to be answered at once, while the boy waits--Oh, my! Oh, my!"

"Lydia, dear, here's the caterer, after all. Will you just please say one thing. Would you rather have the coffee or the water-ices served upstairs--Oh, here's your Aunt Julia--Julia Sandworth, I never needed advice more."

Mrs. Sandworth's appearance was the chord which resolved into one burst of sound all the various motives emitted by the different temperaments in the room. Every one appealed to her at once.

"Just a touch of gold braid on the collar, next the face, don't you--"

"Why not a real supper at midnight, with creamed oysters and things, as they do in the East?"

"Do _you_ see anything out of the way in publis.h.i.+ng the details of Miss Lydia's dress the day before? It gives people a chance to know what to look for."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No, no; I can't--see him--I can't see him any more--"]

"How can we avoid that awful jam-up there is on the stairs when people begin to--"

Mrs. Sandworth made her way to the corner where Lydia stood, presenting a faultlessly fitted back to the world so that Madame Boyle might, with a fat, moist forefinger, indicate the spot where a "soupcon" of gold was needed.

"Please, ma'am, the gentleman said I was to wait for an answer," said the messenger boy beside her.

"And she hasn't _read_ it, yet!" Madeleine was horrified to remember this fact.

"Turn around, Lydia," said Mrs. Sandworth.

Lydia's white lids fluttered. The eyes they revealed were l.u.s.trous and quite blank. Madeleine darted away, crying, "I'm going to get pen and paper for you to write your note right now."

"Lydia," said Mrs. Sandworth, in a low tone, "Daniel Rankin wants to speak with you again. Your G.o.dfather is waiting here in the hall to know if you'll see him. He didn't want to _force_ an interview on you if you didn't want it. He wants to see you but he wanted you to decide in perfect _freedom_--"

The tragic, troubled, helpless face that Lydia showed at this speech was a commentary on the last word. She looked around the room, her eyebrows drawn into a knot, one hand at her throat, but she did not answer. Her aunt thought she had not understood. "Just collect your thoughts, Lydia--"

The girl beat one slim fist inside the other with a sudden nervous movement. "But that's what I can't do, Aunt Julia. You know how easily I get rattled--I don't know what I'm--I _can't_ collect my thoughts."

As the older woman opened her lips to speak again she cut her short with a broken whispered appeal. "No, no; I can't--see him--? I can't stand any more--tell him I guess I'll be all right--it's settled now--Mother's told all these--I like Paul. I _do_ like him! Mother's told everybody here--no, no--I can't, Aunt Julia! I _can't_!"

Mrs. Sandworth, her eyes full of tears, opened her arms impulsively, but Lydia drew back. "Oh, let me alone!" she wailed. "I'm so tired!"

Madame Boyle caught this through the clatter of voices. "Why, poor Maddemwaselle!" she cried, her kindly, hara.s.sed, fatigued face melting.

"Sit down. Sit down. I can show the ladies about this collar just as well that way--if they'll ever look."

Mrs. Sandworth had disappeared.

Madeleine, coming with the pen and ink, was laughing as she told them, "I didn't know Dr. Melton was in the house. I ran into him pacing up and down in the hall like a little bear, and just now I saw him--isn't he too comical! He must have heard our chatter--I saw him running down the walk as fast as he could go it, his fingers in his ears as if he were trying to get away from a dynamite bomb before it went bang."

"He hasn't much patience with many necessary details of life," said Mrs.